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“Of course, darling, if you are.” Whatever complications this might cause, he added to himself. It must

be his child or she would have told Damon first.

She picked up his confusion. “But how
 
could
 
Damon feel? He shares my happiness, of course, and isglad!” She leaned back, looked up into his face and said, “Would this also be something wrong for yourpeople? I am glad I do not know any of them!”

Repeated shocks of this kind had made Andrew almost numb to them. “Damon is my friend, my bestfriend. Among my people this would be considered treachery, a betrayal. My best friend’s wife would bethe one woman forbidden to me.”

She shook her head. “I do not think I like your people
 
at all
 
. Do you think I would share my bed with

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any man my husband did not know and love? Would I bear a child for my husband to father, by a stranger or an enemy?” After a moment, she added, “It is true, I wished to bear Damon a child first, but you know what happened, and might happen again. We are too closely kin, so now we may decide to have no children between us, since he does not need an heir of Ridenow blood, and a child you give us is likely to be healthier and stronger than one he might give me.”

“I see.” He could admit it made some sense, but he paused to examine his own feelings. A child of his own, by a woman he loved. But not by his beloved wife. A child who would call some other man father, on whom he would have no claim. And how would Callista feel? Would it seem another mark of her distance, her exclusion? Would she feel betrayed?

Ellemir said gently, “I am sure she will be glad for me too. Surely you do not think I would add afeather’s weight to her sorrow when she has had so much to bear.”

He still felt uncertain. “Does she know?”

“No, though she may suspect, of course.” She hesitated. “I always forget you are not one of us. I will tell

her if you wish, though one of our own would want to tell her himself.”

The complex courtesies of such things were beyond him, but suddenly he wished to do what was right inhis adopted world. He said firmly, “I will tell her.”

But he would choose his own time, when she could not doubt his love.

He went into his own room, in confusion, and while he made himself ready for the evening meal, histhoughts ran a strange counterpoint to the mundane business of bathing, trimming the beard which, indefiance of custom, he had begun to grow, putting on his neat indoor clothing.

His own child. Here, on a strange world, and not even the child of his own wife. But Ellemir did not thinkit strange, and Damon had, evidently, known for some time and approved. A strange world, and he waspart of it.

Before he was ready, he heard riders in the courtyard, and when he came downstairs he found Damon’sbrother Kieran, returning from a wintertime visit to Thendara with his eldest son, a redheaded,bright-eyed boy of fourteen or so, and half a dozen Guardsmen, paxmen and hangers-on. Andrew hadnot liked Damon’s eldest brother Lorenz, but he found Kieran likable, and welcomed news from theoutside world, as did
Dom
 
Esteban.

“Tell me how Domenic fares,” demanded the old man, and Kieran smiled, saying, “As it happens, I saw a good deal of him. Kester”—he indicated his son—“is due to go into the cadet corps this summer, so I felt it best to refuse his offer to take Danvan’s place as cadet-master; no man can be master to his own son.” He smiled to take the sting from the words, and said, “I do not wish to be as hard on my son as you had to be on yours, Lord Alton.”

“Is he well? Does he manage the Guards competently?”

“As near as I can tell, you could hardly do better yourself,” Kieran said. “He sits long and listens to wiser heads. He has asked much advice from Kyril Ardais and from Danvan, and even of Lorenz, though I do not think”— he smiled sidelong at Damon, a shared joke—“that he really thinks much more of Lorenz than we do. Still, he is wary, and diplomatic, has made the right friends, and has no favorites. His
 
bredin
 
are well-behaved lads both, young Cathal Lindir, and one of his
 
nedestro
 
brothers—I think the

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name is Dezirado?”

“Desiderio,” said
 
Dom
 
Esteban, with a smile of relief. “I am glad to hear that Dezi is safe and well too.”

“Oh, aye, the three of them are always together, but no brawling, no whoring, no roistering. They are as sober as monks all three. You would think Domenic realized, like a man three times his age, that such a young lad in the command will be watched night and day. Not that they are sad-faced prigs either—young Nic always has a laugh or a jest— but he is holding down the responsibility with both hands,” Kieran told them, and Andrew remembering the merry boy who had stood beside him at his wedding, was glad Domenic was doing so well. As for Dezi, well, perhaps a responsible and challenging job, and knowing that Domenic acknowledged his family status as the old man would never do, might at last help the boy find himself. He hoped so. He knew what it was to feel you did not belong anywhere.

“Is there other news, brother-in-law?” Ellemir asked eagerly, and Kieran smiled. “No doubt I should have taken heed of the ladies’ gossip in Thendara, sister. Let me think… There was a riot in the street where the Free Amazon’s Guild-house stands, and the story goes that some man claimed his wife had been taken there unwilling—”

“That is not true,” Ferrika said angrily. “Forgive me,
 
Dom
 
Kieran, but a woman must come herself and

beg admission there!”

Kieran laughed good-naturedly. “I do not doubt it,
 
mestra
 
, but so the tale runs in Thendara, that he senthired swords to take her back, and they say his wife fought alongside the Amazons defending her house,and wounded him. The tale grows ever greater with each mouth that repeats it Someday, no doubt, theywill say she killed him and nailed his head to the wall. Someone was exhibiting the body of a two-headedfoal in the market, but my paxman told me it was a fake, and a clumsy one at that. In his boyhood he wasapprentice for a time to a harness-maker and knows their tricks. And, let me think a moment, oh, yes. As I rode through the hills, I heard of a field of
kireseth
 
in bloom with the warm days, not a true Ghost Windas in the summertime, but a winter blooming.”

Dom
Esteban nodded, smiling. He said, “It is rare, but it happens, and it used to be thought fortunate.”

Callista explained in a low voice to Andrew: “
 
Kireseth
is a flower which blooms but rarely in the hills. The pollen and flowers are the source from which we make
 
kirian
 
. When it blooms in high summer, withthe heat and wind in the hills, it sweeps down from the hills in a wind of madness, a Ghost Wind they callit. Men do strange things under its influence, and when there is a true Ghost Wind we ring the alarms andbarricade ourselves in our homes, for the beasts run mad in the forests, and sometimes nonhumans comedown out of the hills and attack mankind. I saw them once as a child,” she said, shuddering.

Dom
Esteban went on: “But with a winter blooming, it cannot last long enough to be serious. A village’sfolk will forget their sowing and ploughing, leave their gardens untended for a day or two while they playthe fool, but after a few hours the rain comes to settle the pollen to the ground. The worst thing I everheard during a winter blooming was that the scavenger wolves in the forest grew bold—the pollen affectsthe brain of man and beasts alike—and came into the fields to attack cattle or horses. Mostly a winterblooming is only an unexpected holiday.”

Andrew remembered that he had been warned by Damon not to handle or smell the
 
kireseth
 
flowers inthe still-room.

“It has one other side effect,” said Ferrika, with a broad smile. “There will be more work in that village

for the midwife, when autumn comes. Women who have chosen not to have children, or even old

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matrons whose children are grown, sometimes find themselves with child.”

Dom
Esteban guffawed. “Ah, yes, when I was a lad they used to make jokes at weddings, if themarriage had been arranged by the families and the bride was reluctant. Then one summer there was awedding—oh, off to the north, near Edelweiss—and a Ghost Wind blew during the feasting. Thefestivities were rowdy, feasting and drinking and… well it was indecorous, and went on for days. I wastoo young, alas, to take much good from it, but I remember seeing some things usually shielded fromchildren’s eyes.” He wiped tears of laughter from his face. “And then, more than half a year later, manychildren were born about whose parentage there was, to say the very least, a question. Now they do notmake such jokes at weddings any more.”

“How disgusting!” Ferrika said with a grimace, but Damon could not help laughing, thinking of the wedding whose vulgar jokes and rowdy games, made in jest, had turned to an orgy under the influence of the Ghost Wind.

“I don’t suppose
 
they
 
thought it was funny,” Ellemir said soberly, and
Dom
 
Esteban said, “No indeed, chiya. As I told you, they do not ever make such jokes at weddings there now! But indeed, there used to be tales in the hills that in summer, when the Ghost Winds blew, some people in the Domains would hold festival, an old festival of fertility. Those were barbarian days, before the Compact, perhaps even before the Ages of Chaos.” He added, “But, of course, a winter blooming is nothing serious.”

“Nor any laughing matter,” Ferrika said, “for the women who find themselves bearing an undesired

child!”

Andrew saw Ellemir frown a little in puzzlement. He followed her thoughts easily enough: Could any

woman
 
not
 
want a child? Callista said, “I could wish for a winter blooming here. I must make more

kirian
 
, because what we have is nearly gone and we should keep it in the house.”

One of the stewards, eating his meal at a side table where he could be quickly summoned at need, raisedhis head and said, in a diffident, rusty voice, “
Domna
, if that is truly your wish, there are
 
kireseth
flowers on the hillside above the pasture where the twin foals were born, the one where the old stonebridge stands. I do not know if they are in bloom still, but my brother saw them when he rode that waythree days ago.”

“Truly?” Callista said. “I thank you, Rimal. If the weather holds fine—though it is not likely to—I shall

ride that way tomorrow and replenish my store.”

That night there was neither rain nor snow, and after breakfast, when Kieran Ridenow had taken hisleave—
Dom
Esteban urged him to stay for a few days, but he said he must take advantage of the goodweather—Callista ordered her horse saddled.
 
Dom
 
Esteban frowned when he saw her in her riding skirt.

“I do not like this, Callista.
 
Chiya
 
, when I was a lad it was always said that no woman should ride alone

in the hills when the
 
kireseth
 
is in bloom.”

Callista laughed. “Father, do you truly think—”

“You are
 
comynara
 
, child, and none of our own would harm you, mad or sane, but there might be

strangers or outlaws in the hills.”

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“I will take Ferrika with me,” she said gaily. “She has had the training of an Amazon Guild-house, and

can defend herself against any man born, whether he intend robbery or rape.”

But Ferrika, summoned in half seriousness, refused to go. “The dairyman’s wife is near her term andmay give birth today,
 
domna
 
,” she said. “It would hardly be seemly to leave my proper task and gopleasure-riding into the hills. You have a husband, my lady, ask
him
 
to ride with you.”

There was not much for Andrew to do about the estate— the repairs from the storm had beencompleted, and the ranch was still in its winter dormancy, despite the fine weather. He had his horsesaddled.

Away from the household, he thought, when they were together, he might find the right moment to tellher about Ellemir. And the baby.

It was still early when they set out. To the east, the sky was layered with purple and black flaps of thickclouds, latticed with crimson from the sun behind. As they rode along the steep trails, looking down intothe valleys below, with patches of snow clinging below the trees, and the horses on every hillsidecropping the sprigs of new-sprung grass, his heart lightened. Callista had never seemed merrier, morebeautiful. She sang snatches of old ballads as they rode, and once paused, childlike, at the mouth of along valley to send a long, sweet “Hallooo—ooo—ooo” down the slope, laughing gaily when the echocame back a hundredfold from the high rocky slopes. As they rode the sun climbed the sky and the daygrew warmer. She unfastened her dark blue riding cape and slung it across her saddle horn.