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When the dancing began he was much in demand as a partner. He found out why when a youngster stillin his teens swept Callista into the dance, saying over his shoulder to his previous partner, a girl wholooked no more than fourteen, “If I dance with a bride at Midwinter, I shall be married before the year isout!”

The girl—a child really, in a child’s flowered frock, her hair in long curls about her cheeks—came up to Andrew, saying with a pert smile to hide her shyness, “Why, then, I’ll dance with the groom!” Andrew letthe child pull him on to the dance floor, warning her that he was not a good dancer. Later he saw the girlagain, in a corner with the youngster who had wanted to be married that season, kissing with whatseemed to be unchildlike passion.

As the night wore on there was a lot of pairing off in corners and wandering away in couples into thedark outer part of the halls.
 
Dom
 
Esteban got very drunk and was eventually carried off to bed,senseless. One by one the guests took their leave, or said good night and were escorted to their beds. Most of the servants had joined in the party and were as drunk as the other guests, not having a long ridein the cold ahead of them. Damon had fallen asleep on a bench in the Great Hall, and was snoring. It wasthe dimness before dawn when they looked around the Great Hall, with its drooping greenery, scatteredbottles and cups, discarded sweets and refreshments, realizing that their duties as hosts were ended andthey could seek their own beds. After a few halfhearted efforts to rouse Damon, who muttered drunkenlyat them, they left him there and went upstairs without him. Andrew was amazed. Even at his wedding, Damon had drunk sparingly. Well, even a sober man had a right to get drunk at the New Year, hesupposed.

In the rooms which the two couples were to share that night because of the house party, he felt aknifelike frustration, intensified by his half-drunken state, amorous and disappointed. It was a hell of a life,married like this and sleeping alone. A hell of a marriage, so far, and what felt like a travesty of a Christmas party. He felt let-down, dismal. Maybe with Damon drunk, Ellemir—but no, the women hadclimbed together into his big bed, as they had done during Callista’s long illness. He supposed he wouldsleep again in the small one that was usually Callista’s, and Damon, if he came upstairs at all, in the sittingroom of the suite.

The women were giggling together like little girls. Had they been drinking too? Callista called his namesoftly and he came over to them. They were lying close together, laughing in the dim light. Callistareached up and pulled him down to them.

“There’s room for you here.”

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He hesitated. Did this make any sense, tantalizing himself this way? Then he laughed, climbing in besidethem. The bed was an enormous one that would have held half a dozen without crowding. Callista saidsoftly, “I wanted to prove something to you, my love,” and gently pushed Ellemir into his arms.

He felt furious embarrassment that seemed to burn through his whole body, dousing his passion like icewater. He had never felt so naked, so exposed, in his life.

Oh hell, he felt. He was behaving like a fool. Wasn’t this the next logical step anyway? But logic had nopart in his feelings.

Ellemir felt warm, familiar, comforting in his arms.

What’s the matter, Andrew?

The matter, and damn it, she had to know it, was Callista’s presence. He supposed that to some peoplethis would be especially exciting. Ellemir followed his thoughts, which associated this kind of thing witherotic exhibitions, attempts to rouse jaded tastes, decadence. She said in a whisper, “But it isn’t at all likethat, Andrew. We are all telepaths. Whatever we do, the others will know it, be part of it, so whypretend that any of us can ever completely shut out any of the others?”

He felt Callista’s fingertips touching his face. Strange that in the dark, though their small hands werealmost identical, he could be so sure it was Callista’s hand and not Ellemir’s on his cheek.

Among telepaths the concept of that kind of privacy could not exist, he knew, so shutting doors andgoing away in isolation was only a pretense. There came a time when you stopped pretending…

He tried to bring back his previous amorous state, but drunkenness and embarrassment conspired todefeat him. Ellemir laughed, but it was perfectly clear that the laugh did not intend ridicule. “I think we’veall had too much to drink. Let’s sleep, then.”

They were all almost asleep when the door of the room opened and Damon came in, moving unsteadily. He looked down at them, smiling. “Knew I’d find you all here.” He flung his clothes this way and that. Hewas still blundering drunk. “Come on, make room, where do I—”

“Damon, you want to sleep it off,” Callista said. “Won’t you be more comfortable—”

“Comfortable be damned,” Damon said drowsily. “Nobody ought to have to sleep alone at festival

time!”

Laughing, Callista made room at her side and Damon crawled in, was instantly asleep. Andrew felt amad laughter blowing away his embarrassment. As he fell asleep he became aware of a dim thread ofrapport, weaving among them, as if Damon, even in sleep, reached out for the comfort of their presence,drawing them all close together, intertwined, close-folded, their hearts beating in rhythm, a slow pulse, aninfinite comfort. He thought, not knowing whether it was his own thought or another’s, that Damon wasthere, it was all right now. That was the way it ought to be. He felt Damon’s awareness:
All my lovedones… I will never be alone again
 
…

It was late when they woke, but the drawn curtains made it dark in the room. Ellemir was still folded inhis arms. She stirred, turned sleepily toward him, enfolded him with her woman’s warmth. The sense of

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closeness, of unique sharing, was still there, and he let himself be swept into it, accepting the welcoming of her body. It was not only himself and Ellemir, somehow, but the very awareness, somewhere below conscious level, that they were all part of it, they fitted together, uniquely and without analysis. He felt like shouting to the world, to everyone, “I love you, I love all of you.” In his exultation he did not distinguish his sexual awareness of Ellemir, the tenderness for Callista, the strong, protective warmth he felt for Damon, They were all one emotion, and it was love. He floated in it, he drowned in it, he lay spent, luxuriating in it. He knew they had wakened the others. It didn’t seem to matter.

Ellemir moved first, stretching, sighing, laughing, yawning. She raised herself a little, kissed him quickly. “I would like to stay here all day,” she said ruefully, “but I am thinking of the chaos downstairs in the hall. If any of our guests are to have breakfast, I must go down and make sure something is done!” Sheleaned over and kissed Damon and, after a moment, kissed Callista too, then slid from the bed and wentto dress.

Damon, less physically involved, sensed the effort Callista was making to keep herself barriered. So itwas not complete, after all. She was still outside. He touched a light fingertip to her closed eyes. Andrewhad gone into the bath. They were alone, and he felt the gallant pretense dissolve.

“Crying, Callie?”

“No, of course not. Why should I?” But she was.

He held her, knowing at this moment they shared something from which the others were excluded, thatshared experience, that painful discipline, the sense of
apartness
 
.

Andrew had gone to dress. Damon caught a fragment of his thought, contentment mingled with chagrin,and thought how for a little while Andrew was one of them. Now he was apart from them too. He sensed Callista’s emotions too, not begrudging Ellemir anything, but desperately needing to know before shecould share it. He sensed her desperate grief, the sudden mad impulse to tear at herself with her nails,beat herself with her fists, turn against this useless mutilated body which was so far from what it shouldhave been. He held her against him, trying to calm and soothe her with his touch.

Ellemir came back from her bath, the ends of her hair dripping, and sat at Callista’s dressing table. “I willwear one of your housedresses, Callie, there is so much clearing away to be done,” she said. “That is theonly bad thing about a party!” She saw Callista, hiding her face against Damon, and for a moment shewas wrung by Callista’s grief. Ellemir had been brought up thinking of herself as having a little of the
laran
 
of her clan, but now, taking the full impact of her twin’s sorrow, she knew it was more of a cursethan a blessing. And when Andrew came back she sensed his sudden apartness.

Andrew was thinking that you just had to be brought up to that kind of thing. He interpreted Ellemir’stense silence as shame or regret for what had happened and wondered if he ought somehow toapologize. For what? To whom? Ellemir? Damon? He saw Callista lying in Damon’s arms. Where wouldhe get any right to complain? Turn about was fair play, but he still felt an almost physical queasiness anddisgust, or was it only that he had drunk too much the night before?

Damon saw his eyes on them and smiled.

“I suppose
 
Dom
 
Esteban has a head worse than mine this morning. I’ll go douse some cold water on mine, and go down and see if I can do something for our father. I haven’t the heart to leave him to his body-servant today.” He added, disentangling himself slowly and without haste from Callista, “Have your Terrans any suitable expression for the morning after the night before?”

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“Dozens,” Andrew said glumly, “and every one as revolting as the thing itself.” Hangovers, he thought.

Damon went into the bath and Andrew stood jerking a comb through his hair, glowering at Callista. Hedid not even see that her eyes were red. Slowly she got out of bed and into her flowered chamber robe. “I must go help Ellemir. The maids will hardly know where to start. Why are you staring at me, myhusband?”

The phrase made him angry, quarrelsome. “You will not even let me touch your fingertips, and if I kissyou, you draw away as if I meant rape, yet you were lying in Damon’s arms—”

She lowered her eyes. “You know why I dare… with him.”

Andrew remembered the intense awareness, sexuality, he had sensed,
 
shared
 
with Damon. It wasdisquieting, flooding him with vague unease. “You cannot say that Damon is not a man!”

“Of course he is,” said Callista, “but he has learned—and in the same hard school as I—when and how

not
 
to seem so.”

That was somehow, to Andrew’s hypersensitive guilt, like a taunt, as if he were some kind of brute,animal, who could not control his sexual urges but must be accommodated. She had literally pushed himinto Ellemir’s arms, but Damon needed no such concessions. Suddenly, angrily, he took Callista in hisarms, forced his mouth on hers. For a moment she fought him, twisting her mouth away from his, and hecould feel the wild upheaveal in her. Suddenly she went wholly passive in his arms, her lips cold,unmoving, so far away she might not have been in the same room with him at all. Her low voice tore athim like fangs.

“Whatever you feel you must do, I can bear. As I am now, it would make no difference. It will not damage me now, nor stir me to the point where I will react or strike at you. Even if you felt you must… must take me to bed… it would mean nothing to me, but if it gave you any pleasure…”

Cold, shocked to the very bones, he let her go. Somehow this was more horrible than if she had resistedhim madly, torn at him with teeth and fingernails, struck him again with the lightning bolt. Before, shefeared her own arousal. Now she knew that nothing would get through her defenses… nothing.

“Oh, Callista, forgive me! Oh, God, Callista, forgive me!” He fell to his knees before her, gathering up her small fingertips in his, pressing them to his lips in an agony of remorse. Damon came from the bath, standing appalled at the tableau, but neither of them heard or saw him. Slowly Callista laid her hands on either side of Andrew’s face. She said in a whisper, “Ah, love, it is I should ask you to forgive me. I do not want… I do not want to be indifferent to you.” Her voice was filled with such grief that Damon knew he could not wait any longer.

He knew why he had gotten so drunk last night. It was because, with Midwinter past, he could no longerdelay the ordeal. Now he must go into the overworld, into time itself, and search for help there, for a wayto bring Callista back to them. Now, before her frantic grief, he felt he would risk more than this for her,for Andrew.

Very quietly, he withdrew and went out of the suite the other way.