She had been rigid in my arms; suddenly she went limp against me, her arms clinging around my neck. I thought she would cry. I said, still trembling with that mixture of fury and tenderness, “And don’t make jests about the fires! Evanda have mercy, Thyra! You were never at Arilinn, you have never seen the memorial, but have you, who are a singer of ballads, never heard the tale of Marelie Hastur? I have no voice for singing, but I shall tell it you, if you need reminding that there is no jesting about such matters!” I had to break off. My voice was trembling.

Kadarin said quietly, “We all saw Marjorie in the fire, but it was an illusion. You weren’t hurt, were you, Margie?”

“No. No, I wasn’t. No, Lew. Don’t, please don’t. Thyra didn’t mean anything,” Marjorie said, shaking. I ached to reach out for her, take her in my arms, keep her safe. Yet that would place her in more danger than anything else I could possibly do.

I had been a fool to touch Thyra.

She was still clinging to me, warm and close and vital. I wanted to thrust her violently away, but at the same time I wanted—and she knew it, damn it, she knew it!—I wanted what I would have had as a matter of course from any woman of my own circle who was not a Keeper. What would have dispelled this hostility and tension. Any woman tower-trained would have sensed the state I was in and felt responsible …

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, thisis 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 thatsecret? 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. “ Allthe 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.

“Go and rest, Lew. Look, Rafe’s asleep on the rug. Thyra, call someone to carry him to bed. Off with you now, all of you!”

“Yes,” said Beltran, “tomorrow we have work to do, we’ve delayed long enough. Now that we have a catalyst telepath—”

I said somberly, “It may take a long time now to persuade him to trust you, Beltran. And you cannot use force on him. You know that, don’t you?”

Beltran looked angry. “I won’t hurt a hair of his precious little head, kinsman. But you’d better be damned good at persuading. Without his help, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

I didn’t either. We needed Danilo so terribly. We separated quietly, all of us sobered. I had a terrible feeling of weight on my heart. Thyra walked beside the burly servant who was carrying Rafe to bed. Kadarin and Beltran, I knew, were going to watch beside Kermiac. I should have shared that vigil. I loved the old man and I was responsible for the moment’s lack of control which had struck him down.

I was about to leave Marjorie at the foot of her tower stairway, but she clung hard to my hand.

“Please, Lew. Stay with me. As you did the other day.”

I started to agree, then realized something else.

I didn’t trust myself.

Whether it was the brief disturbing physical contact with Thyra, whether it was the upsetting force of the quarrel, or the old songs and ballads … I didn’t trust myself!

Even now, it took all my painfully acquired discipline, all of it, to keep from taking her into my arms, kissing her senseless, carrying her up those stairs and into her room, to the bed we had shared so chastely …

I stopped myself right there. But we were deeply in contact; she had seen, felt, sharedthat awareness with me. She was blushing, but she did not turn her eyes from mine. She said at last, quietly, “You told me that when we were working like this, nothing could happen that would harm or … or endanger me.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand it either, Marjorie. Normally, at this stage,” and here I laughed, a short unmirthful sound, “you and I could lie down naked together and sleep like brothers or unweaned babies. I don’t know what’s happened, Marjorie, but I don’t dare. Gods above!” I almost shouted at her. “Don’t you think I want to?”

Now she did avert her eyes for a moment. She said in a whisper, “Kadarin says it’s only a superstition. I’ll … I’ll risk it if you want to, Lew. If you need to.”