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How came ye fight with your own blood kin,

Brother, tell me, tell me, Your father's sons and your mother's sons Who dwelled in peace with thee.

Lew was still talking, through the sound. "The Comyn has been too often unjust. They threw Daniloaside like a piece of rubbish, for no better reason than that he had offended a wicked and corrupt manwho should never have been in power. Danilo is a catalyst telepath. I suggested they bring him here-I hadno idea they would take him by force-and his services be enlisted to a larger loyalty. I had it in mind hecould serve all our world, not a sick, power-mad clique of aristocrats bent on keeping themselves hipower at whatever cost...."

The mournful harp-chords were very soft, the woman's voice very sweet.

We sat at feast, we fought in jest,

Sister, I vow to thee; A berserker's rage came in my hand, And I slew them shamefully.

Lew said, "Enough of this, you are tired and anxious about Dani, and you must have some rest. Whenyou are well recovered, I want you to know all about what we are doing. Then you will know why thosewho are really loyal to Darkover may serve us all best by putting some check on the Comyn powers."

Regis could feel Lew's sincerity through the touch on his hand, yet there was some hesitation too. He slidhis hand up Lew's arm to touch the tattooed mark there. He said, "You're

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not completely sure of this either, Lew. You are sworn, sealed to Comyn."

Lew took his hand away, saying bitterly, "Sworn? No. Vows in which I had no part were sworn for mewhen I was five years old. But come, we'll talk of this another time. If you've been imagining Danilo aprisoner it will reassure you to find him in the best guest suite, the only one, I suppose, fit to entertain a Hastur. If he's your sworn man he should be lodged with you."

He turned, briefly making his excuses to the women. In his sensitized state Regis could feel theiremotions, too: sharp resentment from the older, the singer. The younger one seemed aware of nothing but Lew. Regis didn't want to be part of these complexities! He was glad when they were alone in thecorridor.

"Regis, what's really wrong with you? You're ill!"

Regis tried-he knew he didn't succeed too well-to cut off the rapport entirely. He knew that if he told Lew he had threshold sickness on the road, Lew would be immensely concerned. Even Javanne hadtreated it as a serious matter. For some reason he was anxious to avoid this. He said, "Nothing much; I'mvery tired. I'm not used to mountain riding and I may have a chill." Actively he resisted Lew's solicitude. He could feel his kinsman's anxiety about him, and it made him irritible for some unknown reason. Hewasn't a child nowl And he could sense the bafflement with which Lew gently but definitely withdrew.

Lew paused at an ornate double door, scowling at the guard stationed there. "You guard a guest, sir?"

"Safeguard, Dom Lewis. Lord Beltran ordered me to see that no one disturbed him. Everybody's not

friendly to the valley folk here. See?" the guard said, thrusting the door open. "He's not locked in."

Lew went in and called, "Danilo?" Regis, following him, took in at a glance the luxurious old-fashionedsurroundings. Danilo came from an inner room, stopped short.

Regis felt overwhelming relief. He couldn't speak. Lew smiled. "You see," he said, "alive and well andunharmed."

Danilo flung back his head in an aggressive gesture. He said, "Did you send to have him captured, too?"

"How suspicious you are, Dani," Lew said. "Ask him yourself. I'll send servants to look after you."

He touched Regis lightly on the arm. "My own honor

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pledged on it, no harm shall come to either of you, and you shall depart unharmed when you are able to

travel." He added, "Take good care of him, Dani," and withdrew, closing the door.

Chapter EIGHTEEN

When I came back to the fireside room, Thyra was still playing her harp, and I realized how short a time

I had been away; she was still singing the ballad of the outlaw berserker.

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And when will you come back again,

Brother, tell me, tell me?

When the sun and the moon rise together in the West, And that shall never be.

It must be immeasurably old, I thought, and alien, to speak of one moon instead of four! Beltran hadreturned and was gazing into the fire, looking angry and remote. He must have gotten the scolding hedeserved from Kermiac. Before this, the old man's illness had kept any of us from telling Kermiac what Beltran had done. I was distressed because Beltran was distressed-I couldn't help it, I liked him, Iunderstood what had prompted his rash orders. But what he had done to Danilo was unforgivable, and Iwas angry with him, too.

And he knew it. His voice, when he turned to me, was truculent.

"Now that you've put the child to bed-"

"Don't mock the lad, cousin," I said. "He's young, but he was man enough to cross the Hellers alone. I

wouldn't."

Beltran said, "I've had that already from Father; he had nothing but praise for the boy's courage andgood manner! I don't need it from you, too!" And he turned his back on me again. Well, I had littlesympathy for him. He might well have lost us any chance of Danilo's friendship or help; and Danilo's help,as I saw it now, was all that could save this circle. If Beltran's laran could be fully opened, if with Danilo'said we could discover and open up a few more latent telepaths, there was a chance, a bare chance butone I

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was willing to take, that we might somehow control the Sharra matrix. Without that it seemed helpless.

Marjorie smiled and said, "Your friend wouldn't speak to me or look at me. But I would like to knowhim."

"He's a valley man, love, he'd think it rude and boorish to stare at a maiden. But he is my good friend."

Kadarin's lip curled in amusement. "Yet it wasn't for your sake he crossed the mountains, but for the

Syrtis boy."

"I came here of my free will, and Regis knew it," I retorted, then laughed heartily. "By my probably nonexistent forefathers, Bob, do you think I am jealous? I am no lover of boys, but Regis was put in my charge when he was a little lad. He's dearer to me than my own brother born."

Marjorie smiled her heart-stopping smile and said, "Then I shall love him, too."

Thyra looked up and taunted, through the chords of her harp, "Come, Marjorie, you're a Keeper! If a

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man touches you you'll go up in smoke or something!"

Icy shudders suddenly racked me. Marjorie, burning in Sharra's flame. ... I took one stride toward thefire, wrenched the harp from Thyra's hands, then caught myself, still rigid. What had I been about to do? Fling the harp across the room, bring it down crashing across that mocking face? Slowly, deliberately,forcing my shaking muscles to relax, I brought the harp down and laid it on the bench.

"Breda," I said, using the word for sister, not the ordinary one but the Intimate word which could also mean darling, "such mockery is unworthy of you. If I had thought it possible, or if I had had the training of you from the first, don't you think I would have chosen you rather than Marjorie? Don't you think I would rather have had Marjorie free?" I put my arm around her. For a moment she was defiant, gazing angrily up at me.

"Would you really have trusted me to keep your rate of chastity?" she flung at me. I was too shocked to

answer. At last I said, "Breda, it isn't you I don't trust, it's your training."

She had been rigid in my arms; suddenly she went limp against me, her arms clinging around my neck. Ithought she would cry. I said, still trembling with that mixture of fury and tenderness, "And don't makejests about the fires! Evanda have mercy, Thyra! You were never at Arilinn, you have never seen thememorial, but have you, who are a singer of ballads, never heard the tale of Marelie Hastur? I

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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 1  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 stil! clinging to me, warm and close and vital. I wanted to thrust her violently away, but at thesame time I wanted-and she knew it, damn it, she knew it!-I wanted what I would have had as a matterof course from any woman of my own circle who was not a Keeper. What would have dispelled thishostility 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 itwas Marjorie's. It wasn't Thyra's fault that Marjorie, and not her-, self, had been forced by lack of anyother to be Keeper. It wasn't Thyra who had roused me this way. It wasn't Thyra's fault, either, that shehad not been trained to the customs of a tower circle, where the intimacy and awareness is closer thanany 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. Icould not ask more than this. Their own bonds and ties went far back, beyond my coming. Thyra had

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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, **MareHe Hastur. Iknow the tale. She was a Keeper at Ar-flinn 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 hadbeen done to her and went into the matrix screens in spite of the law of the Keepers. . . . And she died, ablackened corpse like one lightning-struck."

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Marjorie shrank, and I damned Beltran. Why did he have to tell that story in Marjorie's hearing? Itseemed 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 herhead. 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, abogeyman to frighten babies and girl-children!"

I thrust out my scarred hand. "Bob, this is 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 that secret? 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. Wewere working here without elementary safeguards, and I was not yet willing to disregard this oldest andsimplest of precautions.

Kadarin said, "If you and Marjorie feel safer to lie apart until this work is well underway, it's your ownchoice. But don't give yourselves nightmares either. She's well in control. I feel safe with her." He bentdown, kissing her lightly on the forehead, a kiss completely without passion but altogether loving. He puta free arm around me, drew me against him, smiling. I thought for a moment he would kiss me too, but helaughed. "We're both too old for that," he said, but without mockery. For a moment we were all closetogether again, with no hint of the terrible violence and disharmony that had thrust us apart. I began tofeel hope again.

Thyra asked softly, "How is it with our father, Beltranr 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."

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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.

"AU the 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. Andmy own weariness betrayed me. I swayed a little where I stood, and Kadarin caught and Steadied me.