Rediscovery (23 page)

have considered most unlikely: her brother.
And since you sent me here,
he continued,
it
follows that you are the one responsible for what has happened.

That brought her awake.
So what
has
happened? Tell me at once! Are you in
trouble? Did the strangers
—
?
What had he done? Had the people from the moon taken offense at something?

There was no mistaking it; Lorill was full of conflicting emotion—an underlying

concern covered by giddy laughter that seemed to her very much out of place. She wondered if he had been indulging overmuch in wine.
Oh, just a grand to-do over
Kermiac’s sister. These mountain girls are not like those in Carcosa; I suppose I should
have known better, but there was no one to tell me.

A to-do over
Kermiac’s
sister? How in the name of Avarra had Lorill gotten involved with her?
Tell you what?
Leonie demanded. That much hadn’t changed—Lorill could be so infuriatingly obtuse!

That the girls are flirtatious
Lorill replied carelessly.
She tried her wiles on me,
and I admit I did not drive her away with the flat of my sword! Well, I suppose old
Domenic must have seen me with her, and so Kermiac came to me, like the outraged
father in a very bad play.
He chuckled nervously again.
It would have made you laugh,
Leonie, I swear. It took all my control to keep my face straight and my thoughts under a
shield.

What did he want?
Leonie asked, not at all amused.
Trust Lorill to get involved
with the single most unsuitable girl in all the world
—and
the sister of his host.

He solemnly asked me my
intentions
toward the girl! As if a Hastur could intend
anything toward her but a bit of fun which she was all too ready to give.
There was a touch of arrogance about the words which grated on Leonie; she was not so self-centered that she could not recognize the same kind of arrogance in her brother that she herself had displayed on more than one occasion. Reflected back at her, it was like looking into a mirror and seeing an ugly flaw she had not expected. Nevertheless, Lorill was her twin…in any conflict, it would be his side that she stood on.

And what did you say to that?
she demanded fiercely.
What answer did you give
him?

What would you expect me to say?
Lorill replied, with a feeling as if he was shrugging.
I
told him politely that I was simply offering her the admiration she had
asked for. He seemed to feel I should have had some thought of marrying the girl.

Marriage—no, not possible. Not with her brother, the Heir to Hastur.

Lorill obviously felt the same way.
I
can’t imagine why, unless it was that
marrying was in the air. There was a wedding here today; a pair of the strange people
who claim to be from somewhere off our world, another star, they say.

That took her by surprise yet again. So the strangers
were
from the stars! Well, that was near enough to being from the moons that Leonie felt her powers and the knowledge that came from them validated, her statements justified. So she had been right about them! And they married, just as if they were ordinary people…that was almost enough to distract her.

But not for long; she had to learn how much of a situation Lorill had gotten

himself into. And what, exactly, had gone on between him and Kermiac’s sister?

What did Aldaran say?
she asked.

There was a trace of sullen anger in Lorill’s thoughts that hadn’t been there

before.
Kermiac spoke to me in a way I shall find hard to forgive. At last I asked him,

“Do you mean to tell me that your sister is a sheltered virgin?” I meant it as irony, but
he took it for a true question. Or else he meant to insult me in a way that I could not
reply to. He said to me, “Isn’t yours?”

Leonie could not tell what Kermiac had meant by that, but the insolence of such a question made
her
angry. How dared the man make imputations about her honor?
And?

she prompted.
What did you tell him?

So I replied, “Yes, but my sister is properly guarded in a Tower, not frisking her
skirts at any man who looks at her.”
He seemed rather pleased by his own cleverness.

Cleverness? Well, it wasn’t monumentally stupid, but it wasn’t the brightest retort Lorill could have made. Small wonder if Aldaran were angry. Lorill should really have put aside his pride. But who was she to criticize him for
that.
Leonie lost
her
anger; now the argument sounded like no more than two little boys exchanging insults. How had she gotten so much older than her twin in the past few tendays? Or had she always been older than he?
Oh, Lorill, that was most exceptionally stupid. Were you trying to shock
him? What did he say and do then?

Lorill seemed a bit taken aback by that.
He laughed at me, though I could tell he
was angry, and he said that any man of honor would know what to do in this matter,
since no one had ever breathed a word about Mariel before I arrived. He went on and
on about that, how I must have misled her with my lowlander words, turned her head
with my rank, and perhaps even used my
laran
to influence her. So at last I had to tell
him that I was only fifteen, and could not marry anyone without the Council’s consent.

There was no heat behind the accusations, but a great deal beneath the last

sentence. So that was what had made him angry; having to admit his age when he had been so proud of being sent out on his own like a full adult. But there was also an undertone of smugness there that Leonie did not like; a sense that he was proud of himself for having so quickly and easily found a way to escape an obligation that didn’t suit him to admit.
He said to me, “Here in the mountains, it is held that if a man is old
enough to compromise a good girl, he is old enough to make it right.” That made me
truly angry, and what could I tell him except that it had never occurred to me from the
way she acted that Mariel was a “good girl.”

Leonie felt a sudden stillness come over her. There was enough trouble in those

few words to have caused bloodshed between the Domains and Aldaran, and Lorill had no idea how lucky he was that Kermiac had not challenged him on the spot. Somehow she had to make him understand that, before he did something that
would
cause Aldaran to challenge him. Why was it that men allowed anger to overpower good sense,

especially when women were involved?
Lorill, she
is
Comyn, and the sister to
Aldaran’s lord. How could you think such a thing, much less say it?

He seemed to think that she was indulging in female vaporing.
Sister, I swear to
you
—
oh, see for yourself!
He backed up his words with memories of Mariel which
did
seem to Leonie to be terribly flirtatious—

But that was in the world of the Domains, not the mountains, and she at least

could tell that Mariel, who had been raised very differently from herself and her twin, had not meant flirtatiousness. There was a quality of innocence in her smiles and glances, in her gentle speeches, that could not have been counterfeited.

Lorill’s tone was now tinged with more of that smugness that Leonie did not care for.
Those mountain girls are shameless, and I had of her no more than she offered.

Which was, if Lorill’s memory served, not much more than to dance with her,

surrounded by her kin, and her fingertips to hold, for a few seconds, on the rare occasions when he and the girl were alone. At least Lorill had that much sense, not to treat a lady of Aldaran as a serving-maid to be tumbled.

Leonie now felt torn by conflicting emotions. Part of her reaction was envy of

Mariel’s freedom, she suspected. During all of her life, she had been a sheltered lowland lady. She had never gone anywhere unchaperoned and without a gaggle of other girls of her age and
their
chaperones. She had never spoken to an unmarried man alone, apart from her brother. To do as Mariel had, to speak with, even dance, with an unwed man—

It was shocking to Leonie; it made her feel both oddly titillated, as when she had heard a nasty bit of gossip, and yet a little uneasy and fearful. And if the mountain girls could do these things, should they not bear the consequences, even if it meant they were misunderstood by someone like Lorill? Wasn’t that only fair and right?

She was too confused to respond properly, and said the first thing that came into her mind.
Of course, no woman of Aldaran could hope to marry into our kindred,
she replied, still trying to sort out her conflicting feelings.
You could not have a bride who
acted in such a shameless manner, and it might even be that she tried to trap you, I
cannot tell. You cannot afford such an entanglement as this, at any rate; so would our
father and the Council say.

No, such an alliance would never be allowed, even if this put them more at odds

with the Aldarans—which it was sure to do.

I
would not worry overmuch,
Lorill said carelessly.
Kermiac told me to keep my
distance from his sister, made some comments about my being a child, and stalked off. It
may simply have been the wine talking; there was quite a celebration over these star
folk and their marrying.

Leonie relaxed; that could well be the case. Men said things when flush with drink that they would not have at any other time—and often what was spoken beneath the influence of drink was as something done beneath the four moons; ignored, if not forgotten. As long as Kermiac considered Lorill a foolish child, however insulting Lorill himself felt that to be, it would be beneath his pride to challenge Lorill over his foolishness. At any rate, it was done, and all the smiths in Zandru’s forges could not mend a broken egg. Whatever would come of this, would come.

But she was now wide awake, and reminded of the reason she had begged for

Lorill to go to Aldaran in the first place.

I
wish I might see these folk from the moons,
she said wistfully.

Lorill snorted.
I
cannot believe that you could not contact them if you wished.

Your
laran
is stronger than mine, after all.

I suppose that is true,
she admitted, reluctantly. And yet, she felt uneasy about trying any contact with them. She had not been able to do much in the way of

controlling
the contact she’d had with them when they were in the shelter, and she had no guarantee that she would have more control now.

Perhaps later,
she said, just as reluctant to confess that to her brother.
For now
you must simply be my eyes among them
—
and make certain that you are not entrapped
or compromised by the Aldarans. Remember, it would gratify them a great deal to have
one of the Hasturs in their debt
—
or worse, in their power. It would cause even more
trouble to have one of the Hasturs in their family.

You don’t need to remind me, I am fully aware of that,
he said quietly.
I
am not
likely to forget it at any time soon.

Her thoughts drifted back to the strangers, since Lorill at least seemed aware that he could cause a great deal of harm if he kept playing the fool.
The star folk
—
can any of
them read you like this?

For some reason, most of them seem to be head-blind,
Lorill replied.
One or two
of the women and perhaps one of the men are not. I would guess that they have
laran
different from mine, but it is
laran
no less.

He did not seem particularly enthusiastic about discussing the star folk; Leonie could not tell if that was because he was tired, or because she was not asking the right questions. Or, perhaps, the situation with Kermiac disturbed him more than he was willing to admit, even to her.

Still, she persisted.
How can that be?
she asked.
How can some of them have
laran,
and some not?

Be sensible, Leonie,
he said crossly.
Do all peasants have
laran?
Or even all
Comyn? Why should the star folk be any different? Besides, they have contrivances to
do things that the Tower-trained do with
laran,
for I have seen some of them. Perhaps
they do not need it. Now, I am tired, I should like to sleep.

And before she could question him further, the contact between them melted

away, leaving her awake and frustrated by a hundred thousand unanswered questions.

Questions that Leonie knew she must indeed find out more about, on her own.

She had no opportunity to do so for some time, since now she had been entrusted

with more than the ordinary duties in the Tower. Fiora had no intention of easing her work load, it seemed. But in the few times she had to stop and observe, she realized that Fiora herself was just as busy or more so. So Fiora was truly training her to take on a Keeper’s responsibilities. That thought alone succeeded in driving away the thought of the strangers.

But at close of day she was once again left alone in her room, and this time she was not so exhausted that she felt the immediate need for sleep.

So, spurred by her half-forgotten curiosity, she
reached out
with her mind, to make contact with one of the star folk. She felt the need at least to find out the truth of their origin. That they had come from the moons was outrageous enough—but from the stars?