“Of course one loves one’s bondsister.”

“One means, though, you love her.” With a knowing snigger.

I drew back, tense. “Was one then so thoroughly wined the other night? What did one say to you of her?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “You said it all to her. With your eyes, with your smile. And no words passed.”

“May we talk of other things?”

“If your grace wishes.”

“This is a tender theme, and painful.”

“Pardon, then, your grace. One only meant to confirm one’s guess.”

“Such love as that is forbidden among us.”

“Which is not to say that it doesn’t sometimes exist, eh?” Schweiz asked, and clinked his glass against mine.

In that moment I made up my mind never to meet with him again. He looked too deep and spoke too freely of what he saw. But four days afterward, coming upon him on a pier, I invited him to dine a second time. Loimel was displeased by the invitation. Nor would Halum come, pleading another engagement; when I pressed her, she said that Schweiz made her uncomfortable. Noim was in Manneran, though, and joined us at the table. We all drank sparingly, and the conversation was a stilted and impersonal one, until, with no perceptible shifting of tone, we found ourselves telling Schweiz of the time when I had escaped from Salla in fear of my brother’s jealousies, and Schweiz was telling us of his departure from Earth; when the Earthman went home that night, Noim said to me, not altogether disapprovingly, “There are devils in that man, Kinnall.”

“This taboo on self-expression,” Schweiz asked me when we were together another time. “Can you explain it, your grace?”

“You mean the prohibition against saying ‘I’ and ‘me’?”

“Not that, so much as the whole pattern of thought that would have you deny there are such things as ‘I’ and ‘me,’” he said: “The commandment that you must Keep your private affairs private at all times, except only with bond-kin and drainers. The custom of wall-building around oneself that affects even your grammar.”

“The Covenant, you mean?”

“The Covenant,” said Schweiz.

“You say you know our history?”

“Much of it.”

“You know that our forefathers were stern folk from a northern climate, accustomed to hardship, mistrustful of luxury and ease, who came to Borthan to avoid what they saw as the contaminating decadence of their native world?”

“Was it so? One thought only that they were refugees from religious persecution.”

“Refugees from sloth and self-indulgence,” I said. “And, coming here, they established a code of conduct to protect their children’s children against corruption.”

“The Covenant.”

“The Covenant, yes. The pledge they made each to each, the pledge that each of us makes to all his fellow men on his Naming Day. When we swear never to force our turmoils on another, when we vow to be strong-willed and hardy of spirit, so that the gods will continue to smile on us. And so on and so on. We are trained to abominate the demon that is self.”

“Demon?”

“So we regard it. A tempting demon, that urges us to make use of others instead of relying on our own strengths.”

“Where there is no love of self, there is neither friendship nor sharing,” said Schweiz.

“Perhaps so.”

“And thus there is no trust.”

“We specify areas of responsibility through contract,” I said. “There is no need for knowledge of the souls of others, where law rules. And in Velada Borthan no one questions the rule of law.”

“You say you abominate self,” said Schweiz. “It seems, rather, that you glorify it.”

“How so?”

“By living apart from one another, each in the castle of his skull. Proud. Unbending. Aloof. Uncaring. The reign of self indeed, and no abomination of it!”

“You put things oddly,” I said. “You invert our customs, and think you speak wisely.”

“Has it always been like this,” Schweiz asked, “since the beginning of settlement in Velada Borthan?”

“Yes,” I said. “Except among those malcontents you know of, who fled to the southern continent. The rest of us abide by the Covenant. And our customs harden: thus we not may not talk of ourselves in the first person singular, since this is a raw exposure of self, but in medieval times this could be done. On the other hand, some things soften. Once we were guarded even in giving our names to strangers. We spoke to one another only when absolutely necessary. We show more trust nowadays.”

“But not a great deal.”

“But not a great deal,” I admitted.

“And is there no pain in this for you? Every man sealed against all others? Do you never say to yourselves that there must be a happier way for humans to live?”

“We abide by the Covenant.”

“With ease or with difficulty?”

“With ease,” I said. “The pain is not so great, when you consider that we have bond-kin, with whom we are exempted from the rule of selflessness. And the same with our drainers.”

“To others, though, you may not complain, you may not unburden a sorrowful soul, you may not seek advice, you may not expose your desires and needs, you may not speak of dreams and fantasies and romance, you may not talk of anything but chilly, impersonal things.” Schweiz shuddered. “Pardon, your grace, but one finds this a harsh way to live. One’s own search has constantly been for warmth and love and human contact, for sharing, for opening, and this world here seems to elevate the opposite of what one prizes most highly.”

“Have you had much luck,” I asked, “finding warmth and love and human contact?”

Schweiz shrugged. “It has not always been easy.”

“For us there is never loneliness, since we have bond-kin. With Halum, with Noim, with such as these to offer comfort, why does one need a world of strangers?”

“And if your bond-kin are not close at hand? If one is wandering, say, far from them in the snows of Glin?”

“One suffers, then. And one’s character grows tougher. But that is an exceptional situation. Schweiz, our system may force us into isolation, yet it also guarantees us love.”

“But not the love of husband for wife. Not the love of father for child.”

“Perhaps not.”

“And even the love of bond-kin is limited. For you yourself, eh, have admitted that you feel a longing for your bondsister Halum that cannot be—”

I cut him off, telling him sharply, “Speak of other things!” Color flared in my cheeks; my skin grew hot.

Schweiz nodded and smiled a chastened smile. “Pardon, your grace. The conversation became too intense; there was loss of control, but no injury meant.”

“Very well.”

“The reference was too personal. One is abashed.”

“You meant no injury,” I said, guilty over my outburst, knowing he had stung me at a vulnerable place and that I had overreacted to the bite of truth. I poured more wine. We drank in silence for a time.

Then Schweiz said, “May one make a proposal, your grace? May one invite you to take part in an experiment that may prove interesting and valuable to you?”

“Go on,” I said, frowning, ill at ease.

“You know,” he began, “that one has long felt uncomfortably conscious of his solitary state in the universe, and that one has sought without success some means of comprehending his relationship to that universe. For you, the method lies in religious faith, but one has failed to reach such faith because of his unfortunate compulsion toward total rationalism. Eh? One cannot break through to that larger sense of belonging by words alone, by prayer alone, by ritual alone. This thing is possible for you, and one envies you for it. One finds himself trapped, isolated, sealed up in his skull, condemned to metaphysical solitude: a man apart, a man on his own. One does not find this state of godlessness enjoyable or desirable. You of Borthan can tolerate the sort of emotional isolation you impose on yourselves, since you have the consolations of your religion, you have drainers and whatever mystical mergings-with-the-gods the act of draining gives you; but the one who speaks to you now has no such advantages.”