“For nine years, Leonie, I have borne the weight of the Keeper’s oath. I am not the first to ask leave to lay it down, nor will I be the last to do so.”

“When I was made Keeper, Callista, it was taken for granted that it was a lifetime decision. I have borne my oath lifelong. I had hoped you would be willing to do no less.”

Callista wanted to weep, to cry out I cannot, to plead with Leonie. She thought, with a forlorn detachment, that it would be better if she could. Leonie would be readier to believe her unfit, to free her. But she had been taught pride, had fought for it and armored herself with it, and she could not now surrender it.

“I was never told, Leonie, that I must give my oath lifelong. It was you who told me that it is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting.”

With stony patience, Leonie said, “That is true. Yet I had believed you stronger. Well, then, tell me about it. Have you lain with your lover?” The word was scornful; it was the same she had used before, meaning “promised husband,” but this time Leonie used the derogatory inflection which gave it, instead, the implication of “paramour,” and Callista had to stop and steady her voice before she could summon up calm enough to speak quietly.

“No. I have not yet been given back my oath, and he is too honorable to seek it. I asked leave to marry, not absolution for betrayal, Leonie.”

“Truly?” Leonie said, disbelief in the word, and her cold face scornful. “Having resolved to break your oath, I wonder you waited for my word!”

It took all of Callista’s self-control, this time, to keep from bursting into angry defense of herself, of Andrew — then she realized that Leonie was baiting her, testing to see if she had indeed lost control of her carefully disciplined emotions. This game she knew from her earliest days at Arilinn, and relief at the memory made her want to laugh. Laughter would have been as unthinkable as tears in this solemn confrontation, but there was merriment in her voice, and she knew Leonie was aware of it, as she said with calm amusement, “We keep a midwife at Armida, Leonie; send for her, if you wish, and let her certify me virgin.”

It was Leonie who lowered her eyes, saying at last, “That will not be necessary, child. But I came here prepared to face, if need be, the knowledge that you had been raped.”

“In the hands of nonhumans? No, I suffered fear, cold, imprisonment, hunger, abuse, but rape I was spared.”

“It would not really have mattered, you know,” Leonie said, and her voice was very gentle. “Of course, a Keeper need not, in general, have to fear rape very much. You know as well as I that any man who lays hands on a Keeper trained as you have been trained takes his life in his hands. Yet rape is possible. Some women have been overpowered by sheer might, and some fear at the last moment to invoke that strength to protect themselves. So it was this, among other things, I came to tell you: even if you had truly been raped, you still had a choice, my child. It is not the physical act which makes the difference, you know.” Callista had not known, and was vaguely surprised.

Leonie went on, dispassionately: “If you had been taken unwillingly, wholly without consent, it would make no difference that could not be quickly overcome by a little time in seclusion, for the healing of your fears and hurts. But even if it was not a question of rape, if you had lain with your rescuer afterward, in gratitude or kindness, without any genuine involvement — as you might well have done — even that need not be irrevocable. A time of seclusion, of retraining, and you could be as before, unchanged, unharmed, still free to be Keeper. This is not widely known; we keep it secret, for obvious reasons. But you still have a choice, child. I do not want you to think that you are cast out from the Tower for all time because of something which happened without your will.”

Leonie still spoke quietly, almost impassively, but Callista knew she was pleading. Callista said, wrung with pity and pain, “No, it is not like that, Leonie. What has happened between us… It is quite different. I came to know him, and love him, before I ever saw his face in this world. But he is too honorable to ask that I break an oath given, without leave.”

Leonie raised her eyes, and the steel-blue gaze was suddenly like a glare of lightning.

“Is it that he is too honorable,” she said harshly, “or is it that you are afraid?”

Callista felt a stab of inward pain, but she kept her voice steady. “I am not afraid.”

“Not for yourself perhaps — I acknowledge it! But for him, Callista? You can still return to Arilinn, without penalty, without harm. But if you do not return — do you want your lover’s blood on your head? You would not be the first Keeper to bring a man to death!”

Callista raised her head, opened her lips to protest, but Leonie gestured her to silence and went on mercilessly, “Have you been able even to touch his hand, even so much as that?”

Callista felt relief wash through her, a relief so great that it was like physical pain, draining her of strength. With a telepath’s whole total recall, the image in her memory returned, annihilating everything else that lay between…

Andrew had carried her from the cave where the Great Cat lay dead, a blackened corpse beside the shattered matrix he had profaned. Andrew had wrapped her in his cloak and set her before him on his horse. She felt it again, in complete recall, bow she had rested against him, her head on his breast, folded close into the curve of his arms, his heart beating beneath her cheek. Safe, warm, happy, wholly at peace. For the first time since she had been made Keeper, she felt free, touching and being touched, lying in his arms, content to be there. And all during that long ride to Armida she had lain there, folded inside his cloak, happy with such a happiness as she had never guessed.

As the image in her mind communicated itself to Leonie, the older woman’s face changed. At last she said, in a gentler voice than Callista had ever heard, “Is it so, chiya? Why, then, if Avarra is merciful to you, it may be as you desire. I had not believed it possible.”

And Callista felt a strange disquiet. She had not, after all, been wholly truthful with Leonie. Yes, for that little while she had been all afire with love, warm, unafraid, content — but then the old nervous constraint had come back little by little, until now she found it difficult even to touch his fingertips. But surely that was only habit, the habit of years, she told herself. It would certainly be all right…

Leonie said gently, “Then, child, would it indeed make you so unhappy, to part from your lover?”

Callista found that her calm had deserted her. She said, and knew that her voice was breaking and that tears were flooding her eyes, “I would not want to live, Leonie.”

“So…” Leonie looked at her for a long moment, with a dreadful, remote sadness. “Does he understand how hard it will be, child?”

“I think — I am sure I can make him understand,” Callista said, hesitating. “He promised to wait as long as we must.”

Leonie sighed. After a moment she said, “Why, then, child… child, I do not want you to be unhappy. Even as I said, a Keeper’s oath is too heavy to be borne unconsenting.” Deliberately, a curiously formal gesture, she reached out her hands, palm up, to Callista; the younger woman laid her hands against the older woman’s, palm against palm. Leonie drew a deep breath and said, “Be free of your oath, Callista Lanart. Before the Gods and before all men I declare you guiltless and unloosed from the bond, and I will so maintain.”

Their hands slowly fell apart. Callista was shaking in every limb. Leonie took her kerchief and dried Callista’s eyes. She said, “I pray you are both strong enough, then.” She seemed about to say something more, but stopped herself. “Well, I suppose your father will have a good deal to say about this, my darling, so let us go and listen to him say it.” She smiled and added, “And then, when he has said it all, we will tell him what is to be, whether he likes it or not. Don’t be afraid, my child; I am not afraid of Esteban Lanart, and you must not be either.”