What has come aver me, that I am so filled with emotion, that I laugh and cry without a word spoken or a touch?
Carolin said in her mind, and she was not conscious that he was not at her elbow, We can leave the horses for tonight in this field; you are a leronis, can you keep them there without fencing, which we have no time to set up? And Romilly was about to answer when she heard Maura’s voice as dear as if spoken aloud, I have not Romilly’s gift, but if you will summon her to help me, I will do what I can.
Romilly tugged the reins a little and pulled her own horse to a stop. Ruyven turned startled eyes on her, but she said, “We are to stop here for the night and I am summoned to the king and the leronis.”
It was Orain who brought her the word, riding through the mass of men and horses and equipment flowing along the road, calling out, “Where are you off to, Romilly? The vai dom has requested you to attend him!”
“I know,” said Romilly, and went on toward the king, leaving Orain staring and surprised behind her.
Carolin extended his arm toward the broad field. He said, “We are to make camp here for the night. Can you help Maura to set pastures here for the horses so that they will not stray?”
“Certainly,” she said, and the men set about making camp, turning the best horses into the field, Sunstar among them.
Maura said, when they were done, “Now we shall set a chasm across which they will see, though we cannot; horses are afraid of heights, so we need only make them see it.”
Romilly linked minds with the young leronis, and together they wove an illusion; a great chasm between horses and men, surrounding the pasture . .. Romilly, still partly linked in mind with Sunstar and her senses extending to her own horse and to the others in the field . . . and aware with them of the great black stallion – saw it and physically flinched, great spaces down which she might fall, shrinking back….
“Romilly,” said Maura seriously, breaking away from the link, “You are what we call a wild telepath, are you not?”
She turned, filled with a prickly awareness of the critical sound in Maura’s voice. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said stiffly.
“I mean, you are one whose laran has been developed of itself, without the discipline of a Tower,” Maura said. “Do you know that it can be dangerous? I wish you would let me monitor you, and make certain that you are under control. Laran is no simple thing.”
She said, even more stiffly, “The people of MacAran have been animal trainers, working with birds and horses and dogs, since time unknown; and not all of them have been supervised by the Towers either.” A trace of the mountain accent crept back in her speech, as if the echo of her father’s voice, saying, “The Hairimyn would have it that a man’s own mind must be ruled over by their leronyn and their Towers!”
Maura said placatingly, “I have no wish to rule over you, Romilly, but you look feverish, and you are still of an age where you might be subject to some of the dangers of laran improperly supervised and developed. If you cannot allow me to monitor you and see what has happened to you, your brother-”
Still less, Romilly thought, could she allow her stern and ascetic brother, so like a cristoforo monk, to read the thoughts she hardly dared acknowledge to herself. She twisted away impatiently, fumbling at a barrier against Maura. “It is generous of you, vai domna, but truly you need not concern yourself about me.”
Maura frowned a little, and Romilly sensed that she was weighing the ethics of a Tower-trained telepath, never to intrude, against a very real concern for the girl. It annoyed Romilly – Maura was not so much older than she was herself, why did she think she was needed to straighten out Romilly’s laran?
I was left on my own with it, and now when I need it no longer they are eager to offer help! I was not offered help when my father would have sold me to Dom Garris, and there was none to help me when I would have been raped by Rory, or when I made an idiot of myself forcing my way into Orain’s bed. I have won these battles alone and unhelped, what makes them think I need their damned condescension now?