I forced myself to be calm, to release myself from Thyra’s arms. It wasn’t Thyra’s fault, any more than it was Marjorie’s. It wasn’t Thyra’s fault that Marjorie, and not herself, had been forced by lack of any other to be Keeper. It wasn’t Thyra who had roused me this way. It wasn’t Thyra’s fault, either, that she had not been trained to the customs of a tower circle, where the intimacy and awareness is closer than any blood tie, closer than love, where the need of one evokes a real responsibility in the others.
I could impose the laws of a tower circle on this group only so far as was needed for their own safety. I could not ask more than this. Their own bonds and ties went far back, beyond my coming. Thyra had nothing but contempt for Arilinn. And to come between Thyra and Kadarin was not possible.
Gently, so she would not feel wounded by an abrupt withdrawal, I moved away from her. Beltran, staring into the fire, as if hypnotized by the darting flames, said in a low voice, “Marilie Hastur. I know the tale. She was a Keeper at Arilinn who was taken by mountain raiders in the Kilghard Hills, ravaged and thrown out to die by the city wall. Yet from pride, or fear of pity, she concealed what had been done to her and went into the matrix screens in spite of the law of the Keepers. . . . And she died, a blackened corpse like one lightning-struck.”
Marjorie shrank, and I damned Beltran. Why did he have to tell that story in Marjorie’s hearing? It seemed a piece of gratuitous cruelty, very unlike Beltran.
Yes. And I had been about to tell it to Thyra, and I had come near to breaking her own harp across her head. That was very unlike me, too.
What in all the Gods had come to us!
Kadarin said harshly, “A lying tale. A pious fraud to scare Keepers into keeping their virginity, a bogeyman to frighten babies and girl-children!”
I thrust out my scarred hand. “Bob, this is no pious fraud!”
“Nor can I believe it had anything to do with your virginity,” he retorted, laughing, and laid a kind hand on my shoulder. “You’re giving yourself nightmares, Lew. For your Marelie Hastur I give you Cleindori Aillard, who was kinswoman to your own father, and who married and bore a son, losing no iota of her powers as Keeper. Have you forgotten they butchered her to keep that secret? That alone should give the lie to all this superstitious drivel about chastity.”
I saw Marjorie’s face lose a little of its tension and was grateful to him, even if not wholly convinced. We were working here without elementary safeguards, and I was not yet willing to disregard this oldest and simplest of precautions.
Kadarin said, “If you and Marjorie feel safer to lie apart until this work is well underway, it’s your own choice. But don’t give yourselves nightmares either. She’s well in control. I feel safe with her.” He bent down, kissing her lightly on the forehead, a kiss completely without passion but altogether loving. He put a free arm around me, drew me against him, smiling. I thought for a moment he would kiss me too, but he laughed. “We’re both too old for that,” he said, but without mockery. For a moment we were all close together again, with no hint of the terrible violence and disharmony that had thrust us apart. I began to feel hope again.
Thyra asked softly, “How is it with our father, Beltran?” I had forgotten that Thyra was his daughter too.
“He is very weak,” Beltran said, “but don’t fret, little sister, he’ll outlive all of us.”
I said, “Shall I go to him, Beltran? I’ve had long experience treating shock from matrix overload—”
“And so have I, Lew,” Kadarin said kindly, releasing me.
“All the knowledge of matrix technology is not locked up at Arilinn, bredu. I can do better without sleep than you young people.”
I knew I should insist, but I did not have the heart to face down another of Thyra’s taunts about Arilinn. And it was true that Kermiac had been training technicians in these hills before any of us were born. And my own weariness betrayed me. I swayed a little where I stood, and Kadarin caught and steadied me.