Clan and Crown

"How will they know?"

"They're not above capturing and interrogating you," Gwen said. 'Not at all."

"I know. But I'm not going near them without minigrenades. Their detectors don't seem to find them-didn't on the Moon, anyway. Pull the pin on one of those and they'll have to scrape the walls."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "You'd do it, too. Will the others?"

"Elliot will, I think."

"What if they take a local?"

"They might do that. But most of the Shainuksis are lazy, Gwen. You didn't know the local languages when you landed. How much time will they put in learning? And most locals don't know about the University, and the ones that do don't know where it is- how many can even read a map?"

"I hope you're right," she said. She got up and paced around the room. "You-don't even mind," she said, "You like for me to know things you don't."

"Sure-"

"It's not sure at all," Gwen said. "All my life men said they wanted me to be smart, but when I showed I could do something better than they could, they left me." She stood at the window and watched the darkening sky. "You're not like that. Why?"

"Too much to do, I guess." He got up and joined her at the window, knowing what would happen next, not wanting it to happen but unable to stop himself.

She turned toward him. "It wasn't fair, you know."

"What wasn't?" he asked.

"Meeting Tylara just after we were put on this planet. Les-expected us to stay together. I think we would have, if we'd had a chance. If we hadn't met her so soon."

"And?" He put his hands on her shoulders.

"I have to go back to the University tomorrow."

She moved closer to him, and after that they didn't talk at all.

He woke startled and sat bolt upright. Gwen was on the other side of the room, fully dressed. "Hello," she said.

"Where are you going?"

"To di

Rick shuddered. "Sorry. That image is just a bit too graphic. She might do it."

"Adds a bit of spice, doesn't it? Stolen fruit's the sweetest and all that."

"Gwen-"

"No," she said. "I do not want to talk about it. Rick, we're not in love, but we'll always be a bit special to each other, and in this crazy place maybe that's all we can ask for. And now I'm going down to supper, and after a decent interval you'll come join me, and we'll just plain forget this happened."

"Do you want to forget?"

"No," she said. "No, my very dear."

"Would you get aboard a flying saucer for me?"

"I don't have to say." She jumped away from him before he could catch her. "See you at supper."

PART SIX

26

Tylara do Tamaerthon, Eqetassa of Cheim and Justiciar of Drantos, looked about the great hall of Castle Dravan with feelings of satisfaction. This was home as it should be, lacking only her husband. Her guards stood like statues along the far wall. The floors were newly scrubbed, the tapestries newly cleaned. Her well-trained servants were carrying away the remains of an excellent meal and had brought in flagons of the new wine. There was nothing to apologize for.

Not that Wanax Ganton noticed. He had eyes only for the Lady Octavia, and might have eaten straw from filthy plates for all he knew. Soon enough he wou1d leave the table, to find some excuse to be alone with the Roman girl. Tylara smiled faintly. Octavia knew what she was doing. Or she'd better. She seemed genuinely to care for the young Wanax.

And he for her. Tylara fingered the Colt at her waist. I believe he would give his binoculars for her though possibly not the Browning pistol, she thought. Rick wished me to encourage this match, but in truth I have little enough to do.

Caradoc, with the young Roman officer Geminius, sat across from Wanax Ganton. The archer seemed nervous. Was it because he was at table with his superiors? Tylara didn't think so. There was too much of Tamaerthon in Caradoc son of Cadaric; he wouldn't be awed by royalty-especially royalty not officially present. Someone had told Ganton of a strange custom, incognito Rick had called it, whereby a Wanax might travel as an eqeta, or even a bheroman, and be treated as such, even though everyone knew he was really the Wanax. It seemed strange, but Ganton had insisted, and it seemed to work. Tylara doubted that Caradoc was much agitated by the Count of the North.

And Caradoc certainly isn't afraid of me, she thought. We grew up together. If my first husband hadn't been shipwrecked in the Garioch, our friendship might have become something more than that. How little I knew, how few my ambitions as daughter of Mac Clallan Muir! I might easily have wed the son of my father's henchman…

A sudden thought struck her. Caradoc was one of two living men who had seen her naked. No, five if she counted the priests of Yatar who delivered her children, but why should she? They'd not looked upon her as men do at women. Nor had Caradoc, when he'd rescued her from Sarakos's bedchamber. Involuntarily she shuddered at the memory of Sarakos and his crone torturer.

My first time to lie with a man. She shuddered again. And to this day I must drink wine before I bed my husband, and that is shameful, for I love him as few women can ever have loved a man. Yet he knows, and he feels the loss. What can I do? Yatar has given us so much, we ca

But if Caradoc had not come when he did! Involuntarily she nodded in satisfaction as she remembered the dead guards outside her room. Caradoc had killed four soldiers and taken her away through secret passages, out of this very castle.

"Coronel Caradoc," she called, using the new title of rank that Rick had conferred on him. "You have won a great victory. Tell us of it. As hostess I command it." And that's why he was nervous! He doesn't like to talk about himself, and of course he has to. "Footman! Fill Coronel Caradoc's cup, that he will not thirst as he tells us of his victory."

He tells the story well, Tylara thought. But he tells more than he thinks.

The situation didn't sound good at all. The Westmen rode where they wanted to go, and their horses were so much faster than Drantos horses that they could seldom be brought to battle against their will- and they would not fight willingly unless they held an advantage.

"And so the Lord Mason conceived a plan," Caradoc said. "I regret that he is not here to tell of it."

Mason and Camithon stayed at the new army camp on the high plains, while Caradoc and Geminius and a number of Roman supply officers came down to Dravan for supplies. There'd been no need for Wanax Ganton to come with Caradoc, but Octavia's presence had been an irresistible attraction.

"A wagon train," Caradoc said. "With a cavalry escort, to travel north and west, riding quickly as if hoping to avoid the Westmen. And certainly it was a clever ruse, for within two days the Westmen saw us and began to stalk us."

And that must have been u

"At first they sought to draw the escort away from the wagons, to induce us to fight at a time and place of their choosing. Fortunately they did not succeed."

Not fortune, Tylara thought. Not fortune, but good pla