She left the window and walked away into the bedroom, catching a glimpse of herself in the great crystal mirror. She looked fragile and timid, like a fledgling fallen from its nest, yellow eyes stretched wide with fear.
She heard Mist stamp up on the porch. She Felt a twinge of annoyance, as if rain had run down his neck when he removed the cloak. Then he braced up his courage and tapped on the door. She sat on the edge of the bed and folded her hands. Go away!
The moments dripped by. His worry begin to mount. He tapped again, louder.
“Thaile! It’s me, Mist. I need to talk to you.”
He wouldn’t go away, she decided. Mist was brash enough and so convinced of his own lovability that he would open the door and peer in if she did not answer. She could not bear the thought of that violation.
Very shakily, she rose and went out to the front room again. “Go away!”
“It’s Mist!”
“I know it is. I don’t want to talk with you.”
“But I have to talk with you. I have a message from Mistress Mearn. Please, Thaile?”
Reluctantly she opened the door a crack and peered out at him. He had removed the cloak. His doublet was scarlet, his hose saffron, and he seemed to fill the porch. His buttercolored eyes stared back at her in ludicrous anxiety. Affable to absurdity, Mist was a human puffball—big and soft and of no known use to anyone. There was hardly anything in him to dislike, even. He forced a smile, but she could Feel his worry and nervousness.
“What’s the message?” she asked. He swallowed.
“She says you are being, er, foolish. She says you can come to the Commons and eat and you won’t be stopped from coming back to your Place again.” He smiled hopefully. “Come and have lunch with me?” All around him silver water streamed from the eaves of the tiny porch.
“No.”
“Fried perch and yams and—”
“No.”
“Then I’ll bring some food here and we can—or you can . . . ”
“No. Go away.”
He seemed to shrink. She Felt fear, then. He would have to take her refusal back to Mearn, and he was frightened of the mistress of novices.
“Thaile? I’m your friend, right? Tell me what’s wrong?”
Leeb was what was wrong, but how could she explain? Mist would think she was mad. Even if he believed her, he would never understand.
“No.”
“Is it the Defile? We didn’t go last night, because of the rain. But Mearn says the Keeper will make the sky clear tonight and the moon is full, so this is the best night.” He studied her hopefully. “It’s only a valley in the mountains, Thaile! We just walk through to the other side. We’ll all be together, you and me and the other three. I’ll hold your hand if you’ll let me.”
Some comfort that would be! She had seen the Defile, or at least the start of it. It was the most evil-looking thing she could imagine. Mearn had admitted it was an ordeal, and that implied a lot more than a walk in the hills by moonlight.
“No, it isn’t the Defile,” she said, meaning that the Defile was only part of it, and a small part.
“Then what?” he demanded with a show of exasperation. “You worry me, Thaile. I love you, you know that!”
She knew he didn’t. He might think he did, but loving and making love meant the same thing to Mist. He thought wanting was the same as wanting to be wanted, and it wasn’t.
She hesitated, and he rushed on.
“Darling, you can’t defy the whole College like this! And the Keeper herself! You know your catechism—Whom do we serve? The Keeper and the College! What do I tell Mistress Mearn?”
It slipped out in a flash of anger. “Tell her I want Leeb!” The buttery eyes blinked with bovine slowness. “Who?”
“Leeb.”
“Leeb? That was the name you said when I was . . . when we were . . .”
“My goodman.”
Mist’s jaw dropped. Then his big boyish face turned pink and pinker and pinkest. “You never said!” he whispered. “You wear your hair short. You didn’t tell me.” His emotions clamored like thunder—shame that he had bedded another man’s goodwife, fear that her goodman might come seeking revenge . . . and real disappointment. He had been looking forward to the next time ever since the only time. And that had been her fault.
Somehow she was sorry for him, then. It was very hard to stay mad at Mist.
“I didn’t know,” she admitted, not able to look him in the eye, studying his long yellow legs and fancy boots. “Not at first. They made me forget.”
“Who did? Forget what?”
“Forget my goodman. Mist, this isn’t your trouble.”
“It is if you’re unhappy.”
How had he stumbled into that touching, un-Mist-like thought?
“Thank you, Mist. I can’t tell you very much.” But suddenly the story came pouring out of her like the insides of a broken egg and she couldn’t stop. “A recorder came and told me I have Faculty and I must come to the College . . . I ran away. I think I ran away. I fell in love with a man called Leeb. We had a Place, I think, a Place very like your cottage, because that was one of the things that started me remembering. I don’t know how I came here. I just was here. That day we met—I realized that there was a whole year missing from my life, or almost a year. The recorders must have found me and brought me here, and they made me forget.”
“Leeb?” he said. “You didn’t know about him, then, when you . . . I mean, when we . . .”
“Yes. But I wasn’t a beginner, Mist, was I?” His blush had been fading. Now it flooded back.
“No. I don’t think so. You knew more than I did, I think.”
That was an astonishing admission from him. Where had all his smugness gone? Why did he suddenly have to start being so infuriatingly likable? She clenched her fists and hardened her anger.
“That was when I was sure. They stole part of my life and they stole my love! How can the Keeper do that? Where do you find that in your catechism? I want Leeb!”
For a moment Mist shuffled his feet. His fright had returned at the thought of carrying this defiance to Mearn. “What’s he like, Thaile? Anything like me?”
She hoped not. “I don’t know. I told you—I don’t remember him at all. Only his name.”
Again those pale yellow eyes widened. “You mean you’re doing this because you’re in love with someone you can’t remember?”
“Yes!” She slammed the door on him, terrified she might start to weep. She leaned on it, shivering. “Tell that to Mistress Mearn!” she shouted. “Tell her I don’t want lunch. Tell her I won’t go to the Defile, tonight or any other night. Tell her I want my goodman back and I shan’t eat or leave here until I get him!”
She heard a muffled wail through the door and Felt his horror. “Thaile!”
“I don’t care if I starve to death! Tell her that, Mist! Tell the Keeper herself!”
Auld acquaintances:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min’?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o’ auld lang syne?
— Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne
TWO
Lonesome road
1
That Thaile child was turning out to be a serious problem, the sort of flaw that could blight a man’s whole career. Her antics were not Jain’s fault, though, and he would have to make that very clear . . . Scowling at the brilliant dawn sunshine, he strode out of his cottage and gazed over the dunes. Coarse grass rippled in the sea wind, waves rushed up on the beach, disappearing into froth and silvery sheets of water. He took a deep breath and felt better. At last a fine morning!
As he had foreseen, the children were romping on the sand with an enormous black furry animal. He strode over to them. The monster saw him first.
“Wait!” it said from under the giggling, struggling heap. ”Wait a pesky minute! Daddy’s here.” Then it shimmered and became a naked woman.
“Trouble?” Jool demanded warily. For a pixie, she was unusually heavy-breasted, wide at the hips, and voluptuous enough to speed his heart even at this time of day—even with his Thaile worries.
“Just a dull old meeting. Daddy has to leave now, darlings.”
The three came running to him for a hug. He knelt, casting a mild charm to keep the sand from sticking to his clothes.
“Stay home today, then,” Jool said, stretching out catlike, soaking up the sunlight. Her gaze was seductive. Lately she’d begun to suspect that he was bored with her; she missed no chance to make herself available. How did women know such things? He was a sorcerer. He ought to be able to keep secrets from a mere mundane. She was only guessing about the others.