proved. Indeed, to Golden's amazement, Master Hemlock sent back a scrupuloustwo-fifths of the prenticing-fee. With the packet, which was delivered by oneof Golden's carters who had taken a load of spars down to South Port, was anote for Diamond. It said, "True art requires a single heart." The directionon the outside was the Hardic rune for willow. The note was signed withHemlock's rune, which had two meanings: the hemlock tree, andsuffering. Diamond sat in his own sunny room upstairs, on his comfortablebed, hearing his mother singing as she went about the house. He held thewizard's letter and reread the message and the two runes many times. The coldand sluggish mind that had been born in him that morning down in the sallowsaccepted the lesson. No magic. Never again. He had never given his heart toit. It had been a game to him, a game to play with Darkrose. Even the names ofthe True Speech that he had learned in the wizard's house, though he knew thebeauty and the power that lay in them, he could let go, let slip, forget. Thatwas not his language. He could speak his language only with her. And he hadlost her, let her go. The double heart has no true speech. From now on hecould talk only the language of duty: the getting and the spending, the outlayand the income, the profit and the loss. And beyond that, nothing. There hadbeen illusions, little spells, pebbles that turned to butterflies, woodenbirds that flew on living wings for a minute or two. There had never been achoice, really. There was only one way for him to go. GOLDEN WAS immenselyhappy and quite unconscious of it. "Old man's got his jewel back," said thecarter to the forester. "Sweet as new butter, he is." Golden, unaware of beingsweet, thought only how sweet life was. He had bought the Reche grove, at avery stiff price to be sure, but at least old Lowbough of Easthill hadn't gotit, and now he and Diamond could develop it as it ought to be developed. Inamong the chestnuts there were a lot of pines, which could be felled and soldfor masts and spars and small lumber, and replanted with chestnut seedlings.It would in time be a pure stand like the Big Grove, the heart of his chestnutkingdom. In time, of course. Oak and chestnut don't shoot up overnight likealder and willow. But there was time. There was time, now. The boy was barelyseventeen, and he himself just forty-five. In his prime. He had been feelingold, but that was nonsense. He was in his prime. The oldest trees, pastbearing, ought to come out with the pines. Some good wood for furniture couldbe salvaged from them. "Well, well, well," he said to his wife, frequently,"all rosy again, eh? Got the apple of your eye back home, eh? No more moping,eh?" And Tuly smiled and stroked his hand. Once instead of smiling andagreeing, she said, "It's lovely to have him back, but" and Golden stoppedhearing. Mothers were born to worry about their children, and women were bornnever to be content. There was no reason why he should listen to the litany ofanxieties by which Tuly hauled herself through life. Of course she thought amerchant's life wasn't good enough for the boy. She'd have thought being Kingin Havnor wasn't good enough for him. "When he gets himself a girl," Goldensaid, in answer to whatever it was she had been saying, "he'll be all squaredaway. Living with the wizards, you know, the way they are, it set him back abit. Don't worry about Diamond. He'll know what he wants when he sees it!" "I hope so," said Tuly. "At least he's not seeing the witch's girl," saidGolden. "That's done with." Later on it occurred to him that neither was his wife seeing the witch anymore. For years they'd been thick as thieves, againstall his warnings, and now Tangle was never anywhere near the house. Women'sfriendships never lasted. He teased her about it. Finding her strewingpennyroyal and millersbane in the chests and clothes-presses against aninfestation of moths, he said, "Seems like you'd have your friend the wisewoman up to hex 'em away. Or aren't you friends anymore?" "No," his wife saidin her soft, level voice, "we aren't." "And a good thing too!" Golden saidroundly. "What's become of that daughter of hers, then? Went off with ajuggler, I heard?" "A musician," Tuly said. "Last summer." "A namedayparty," said Golden. "Time for a bit of play, a bit of music and dancing, boy.Nineteen years old. Celebrate it!" "I'll be going to Easthill with Sul'smules." "No, no, no. Sul can handle it. Stay home and have your party. You've

been working hard. We'll hire a band. Who's the best in the country? Tarry andhis lot?" "Father, I don't want a party," Diamond said and stood up,shivering his muscles like a horse. He was bigger than Golden now, and when hemoved abruptly it was startling. "I'11 go to Easthill," he said, and left the room. "What's that all about?" Golden said to his wife, a rhetoricalquestion. She looked at him and said nothing, a non-rhetorical answer. After Golden had gone out, she found her son in the counting-room goingthrough ledgers. She looked at the pages. Long, long lists of names andnumbers, debts and credits, profits and losses. "Di," she said, and he lookedup. His face was still round and a bit peachy, though the bones were heavierand the eyes were melancholy. "I didn't mean to hurt Father's feelings," hesaid. "If he wants a party, he'll have it," she said. Their voices werealike, being in the higher register but dark-toned, and held to an evenquietness, contained, restrained. She perched on a stool beside his at thehigh desk. "I can't," he said, and stopped, and went on, "I really don't wantto have any dancing." "He's matchmaking," Tuly said, dry, fond. "I don't care about that." "I know you don't." "The problem is..." "The problem isthe music," his mother said at last. He nodded. "My son, there is noreason," she said, suddenly passionate, "there is no reason why you shouldgive up everything you love!" He took her hand and kissed it as they sat sideby side. "Things don't mix," he said. "They ought to, but they don't. I foundthat out. When I left the wizard, I thought I could be everything. You know -do magic, play music, be Father's son, love Rose .... It doesn't work thatway. Things don't mix." "They do, they do," Tuly said. "Everything is hookedtogether, tangled up!" "Maybe things are, for women. But I...I can't bedouble-hearted." "Doublehearted? You? You gave up wizardry because you knewthat if you didn't, you'd betray it." He took the word with a visible shock,but did not deny it. "But why did you give up music?" "I have to have a single heart. I can't play the harp while I'm bargaining with a mule-breeder.I can't sing ballads while I'm figuring what we have to pay the pickers tokeep 'em from hiring out to Lowbough!" His voice shook a little now, avibrato, and his eyes were not sad, but angry. "So you put a spell onyourself," she said, "just as that wizard put one on you. A spell to keep yousafe. To keep you with the mule-breeders, and the nut-pickers, and these." Shestruck the ledger full of lists of names and figures, a flicking, dismissivetap. "A spell of silence," she said. After a long time the young man said,"What else can I do?" "I don't know, my dear. I do want you to be safe. I dolove to see your father happy and proud of you. But I can't bear to see youunhappy, without pride! I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe for a man it'sonly one thing ever. But I miss hearing you sing." She was in tears. Theyhugged, and she stroked his thick, shining hair and apologized for beingcruel, and he hugged her again and said she was the kindest mother in theworld, and so she went off. But as she left she turned back a moment and said,"Let him have the party, Di. Let yourself have it." "I will," he said, tocomfort her. Golden ordered the beer and food and fireworks, but Diamond sawto hiring the musicians. "Of course I'll bring my band," Tarry said, "fatchance I'd miss it! You'll have every tootler in the west of the world herefor one of your dad's parties." "You can tell 'em you're the band that'sgetting paid." "Oh, they'll come for the glory," said the harper, a lean,long-jawed, wall-eyed fellow of forty. "Maybe you'll have a go with usyourself, then? You had a hand for it, before you took to making money. Andthe voice not bad, if you'd worked on it." "I doubt it," Diamond said. "That girl you liked, witch's Rose, she's tuning about with Labby, I hear. No doubtthey'll come by." "I'll see you then," said Diamond, looking big and handsomeand indifferent, and walked off. "Too high and mighty these days to stop andtalk," said Tarry, "though I taught him all he knows of harping. But what'sthat to a rich man ?" Tarry's malice had left his nerves raw, and the thoughtof the party weighed on him till he lost his appetite. He thought hopefullyfor a while that he was sick and could miss the party. But the day came, andhe was there. Not so evidently, so eminently, so flamboyantly there as his