The Forbidden Tower

“Only in Council season, when I am alone here,” Ellemir said, “and our coridom is old and well experienced.”

“But you have no responsible woman, no kinswoman nor companion? You are too young to bear such a weight alone, Ellemir!”

“My father has not complained,” Ellemir said. “I have kept house for him since my older sister was married; I was fifteen then.” She spoke with pride, and Leonie smiled.

“I was not accusing you of any lack of competence, little cousin. I meant only that you must be very lonely. If Callista does not stay with you, I think you must have some kinswoman or friend come and live here for a time. You are overburdened already, now that your father needs so much care, and how would you manage if Damon made you pregnant at once?”

Ellemir colored faintly and said, “I had not thought of that…”

“Well, a bride must think of that, soon or late,” Leonie said. “Perhaps one of Damon’s sisters could come to bear you company — Child, is this my room? I am not used to such luxury!”

“It was my mother’s suite,” Ellemir said. “There is another room there where your companion can sleep, but I hope you brought your own maidservant, for Callista and I have none to send you. Old Bethiah, who was our nurse when we were little, was killed in the raid when Callista was kidnapped, and we have been too heartsore to put anyone else in her place as yet. There are only kitchen-women and the like on the estate now.”

“I keep no maidservant,” Leonie said. “In the Tower, the last thing we wish for is the presence of outsiders near to us, as I am sure Damon must have told you.”

“No, he never speaks of his time in the Tower,” Ellemir answered, and Leonie said, “Well, it is true, we keep no human servants, even if the price is having to look after ourselves. So I will manage very well, child.” She touched the girl’s cheek lightly, a feather-touch in dismissal, and Ellemir went down the stairs, thinking, in surprise, She’s kind: I like her! But many things Leonie had said troubled her. She was begi

And Leonie had said, “If Callista does not stay with you.” Was there a question? Could Callista actually be sent back to Arili

Ellemir wished she had even a flash of the occasional precognition which turned up, now and again, in those of Alton blood, but the future was blank and closed to her. Try as she would to throw her mind forward, she could see nothing but a disquieting picture of Andrew, his face covered with his hands, bent, weeping, his whole body shaken with unendurable grief. Slowly, worried now, she turned toward the kitchen, seeing forgetfulness among her neglected pastries.

A few minutes later, the lady-companion — a dim and colorless woman named Lauria — came to say, deferentially, that the Lady of Arili

Callista moved toward the staircase. Outside the room, in the hall, she turned back to him and said, “No, Andrew, I must face this alone. You ca

She looked up at him and smiled. Sometimes she thought that if she had first seen him in the ordinary way, rather than as she had come to know him, through his mind-link with hers in the matrix, he would never have seemed handsome to her. She might even have thought him ill-favored. He was a big, broad man, fair-haired as a Dry-Towner, tall, untidy, awkward, and yet, beyond this, how dear he had become to her, how safe she felt in his presence. She wished, with a literal ache, that she could throw herself into his arms, hold herself to him as Ellemir did so freely with Damon, but the old fear held her motionless. But she laid her fingertips, a rare gesture, lightly across his lips. He kissed them and she smiled. She said softly, “And I love you, Andrew. In case you’ve forgotten that,” and went away up the stairs to where Leonie was waiting for her.

Chapter Three

The two Keepers of Arili

Like all Keepers, she had learned to barricade her own thoughts. She knew, with an odd clairvoyance, that Leonie was expecting her to break down and weep, to beg and plead like an hysterical girl, but it was Leonie herself who had armored her, years ago, with this icy calm, this absolute control. She was Keeper, Arili

“There was a day,” she said, “when a man who sought to seduce a Keeper would have been torn on hooks, Callista.”

“That day is centuries past,” Callista replied in a voice as passionless as Leonie’s own, “nor did Andrew seek to seduce me; he has offered honorable marriage.”

Leonie gave a slight shrug. “It is all one,” she said. She was silent for a long time, the silence stretching into minutes, and again Callista felt that Leonie was willing her to lose control, to plead with her. But Callista waited, motionless, and it was again Leonie who had to break the silence.

“Is this, then, how you keep your oath, Callista of Arili

For a moment Callista felt pain clutch at her throat. The title was used only for a Keeper, the title she had won at such terrible cost! And Leonie looked so old, so sad, so weary!

Leonie is old, she told herself. She wishes to lay aside her burden, give it into my hands. I was traind so carefully, since I was a child. Leonie has worked and waited so patiently for the day I could step into the place she prepared for me. What will she do now?

Then, instead of pain, anger came, anger at Leonie, for playing so on her emotions. Her voice was calm.