"But I wasn't ready for the Kavalars, oh no. As long as I live I will never forget a second of the fear and the trauma of my first day and night in the holdfasts of Ironjade, as Jaan Vikary's betheyn. Especially the first night." She laughed. "Jaan had warned me, of course, and– Hell, I just wasn't ready to be shared. What can I say? It was bad, but I lived. Garse helped. He was honestly concerned for me, and very much for Jaan. You might even say he was tender. I confided in him; he listened and cared. And the next morning the verbal abuse started. I was frightened and hurt; Jaan was baffled and gloriously angry. He threw Garse halfway across the room the first time he called me betheyn-bitch. Garse was quiet for a little while after that. He rests fairly often, but he never stops. He is truly remarkable, in a way. He would challenge and kill any Kavalar who insulted me half so badly as he does. He knows that his jokes enrage Jaan and provoke terrible quarrels-or at least they did. By now Jaan has become dulled to it all. Yet he persists. Maybe he can't help himself, or maybe he honestly loathes me, or maybe he just enjoys inflicting pain. If so, I haven't given him much joy these past few years. One of the first things I decided was that I wasn't going to let him make me cry anymore. I haven't. Even when he comes out and says something that makes me want to split his head with an axe, I just smile and grit my teeth and try to think of something unpleasant to say back to him. Once or twice I've managed to throw him off his stride. Usually he leaves me feeling like a crushed bug.

"Yet, in spite of everything, there are other moments as well. Truces, little ceasefires in our never-ending war, times of surprising warmth and compassion. Many of them at night. They always shock me when they come. They're too intense. Once, believe it or not, I told Garse I loved him. He laughed at me. He did not love me, he said loudly, rather I was cro-betheyn to him and he treated me as he was obliged to treat me by the bond that existed between us. That was the last time I even came close to crying. I fought and I fought, and I won. I did not cry. I just shouted something at him and rushed out into the corridor. We lived underground, you know. Everyone lives underground on High Kavalaan. I wasn't wearing much except my bracelet, and I ran around crazy, and finally this man tried to stop me-a drunk, an idiot, a blind man who could not see the jade-and-silver, I don't know. I was so furious I pulled his sidearm out of its holster and smashed him across the face with it, the first time I'd ever hit another human being in anger, and just then Jaan and Garse arrived. Jaan seemed calm, but he was very upset. Garse was almost happy, and spoiling for a fight. As if the man I'd overpowered hadn't been insulted enough, Garse had to tell me that I should pick up all the teeth I'd knocked out and hand them back, that I had quite enough already. They were lucky to avoid a duel over that comment."

"How the hell did you ever get involved in a situation like this, Gwen?" Dirk demanded. He was struggling to keep his voice from breaking. He was angry with her, hurt for her, and yet oddly-or perhaps not so oddly-elated. It was all true, everything Ruark had told him. The Kimdissi was her good friend and her confidant; no wonder she had sent for him. Her life was a misery, she was a slave, and he could set it right, him. "You must have had some idea what it would be like."

She shrugged. "I lied to myself," she said, "and I let Jaan lie to me, although I think he honestly believes all the lovely falsehoods he tells me. If I had it to do. over– But I don't. I was ready for him, Dirk, and I needed him, and I loved him. And he had no iron-and-fire to give me. That he had given already, so he gave me jade-and-silver, and I took it just to be near him, with only the vaguest knowledge of what it meant. I'd lost you not long before. I didn't want Jaan to go as well. So I put on the pretty little bracelet and said very loudly, 'I am more than betheyn,' as if that made a difference. Give a thing a name and it will somehow come to be. To Garse, I am Jaan's betheyn and his cro-betheyn, and that is all. The names define the bonds and duties. What more could there possibly be? To every other Kavalar it is the same. When I try to grow, to step beyond the name, Garse is there, angry, shouting betheyn! at me. Jaan is different, only Jaan, and sometimes I can't help myself and I begin to wonder how he really feels."

Her hands came up on the tablecloth and became two small fists, side by side. "The same damn thing, Dirk. You wanted to make me into Jenny, and I saved myself by rejecting the name. But like a fool I took the jade-and-silver, and now I am heldwife and all the denials I can utter won't change that. The same damn thing!" Her voice was shrill, her fists clutched so tightly the knuckles were turning white.

"We can change it," Dirk said quickly. "Come back to me." He sounded inane, hopeful, despairing, triumphant, concerned; his tone was everything at once.

At first Gwen did not answer. Finger by finger, very slowly, she unclenched her fists and stared at her hands solemnly, breathing deeply, turning her hands over and over again as if they were some strange artifacts that had been set before her for inspection. Then she put them flat on the table and pushed, rising to her feet. "Why?" she said, and the calm control had come back to her voice. "Why, Dirk? So you can make me Jenny again? Is that why? Because I loved you once, because something may be left?"

"Yes! No, I mean. You confuse me." He rose too.

She smiled. "Ah, but I loved Jaan once also, more recently than you. And with him now there are other ties, all the obligations of jade-and-silver. With you, well, only memories, Dirk." When he did not reply– he stood and waited-Gwen started toward the door. He followed her.

The robowaiter intercepted them and blocked the way, its face a featureless metal ovoid. "The charge," it said. "I require the number of your Festival accounts."

Gwen frowned. "Larteyn billing, Ironjade 797-742-677," she snapped. "Register both meals to that number."

"Registered," the robot said as it moved out of their way. Behind them the restaurant went dark.

The Voice had their car waiting for them. Gwen told it to take them back to the airlot, and it set off through corridors that suddenly swam with cheerful colors and happy music. "The damn computer registered tension in our voices," she said, a little angrily. "Now it's trying to cheer us up."

"It's not doing a very good job," Dirk said, but he smiled as he said it. Then, "Thank you for the meal. I converted my standards to Festival scrip before I arrived, but it didn't come to much, I'm afraid."

"Ironjade is not poor," Gwen said. "And there isn't much to pay for on Worlorn, in any case."

"Hmm. Yes. I never thought there would be, until now."

"Festival programming," Gwen said. "This is the only city that still runs that way. The others are all shut down. Once a year ai-Emerel sends a man to clear all charges from the banks. Although soon it will reach the point where the trip will cost more than he picks up."

"I'm surprised that it doesn't already."

"Voice!" she said. "How many people live in Challenge today?"

The walls answered. "Presently I have three hundred and nine legal residents and forty-two guests, including yourselves. You may, if you wish, become residents. The charge is quite reasonable."

"Three hundred nine?" Dirk said. "Where?"

"Challenge was built to hold twenty million," Gwen said. "You can hardly expect to run into them, but they're here. In the other cities as well, though not as many as in Challenge. The living is easiest here. The dying will be easy too, if the highbonds of Braith ever think to begin hunting the cities instead of the wild. That has always been Jaan's great fear."