blessing.» «Gladly,» I said. «Slave Yuree, arise.» She stood. «Welcome, sister,» I said. «As family head, I make Yuree the widow a member, and all are to treat her as such.» «Honorable father,» Yuree said, a little smile on her face. «Am I not a full member?» «I have granted it.» «I claim my right,» she said. «As a family member you have all rights,» I said. «Both Yorerie and Cree are sons of sisters of my mother,» Yuree said, with that funny little smile. I realized the import and looked quickly at Mar. She was no longer smiling. «The family has spoken,» I said. «So be it.» «Honorable father,» the Seer of Things Unseen said, «here are the widows to be honored by your seed. Young Til, who was childless, having only this summer come of age; Fanan the widow of Bloc; now that she is no longer a slave, Yuree widow of Logan; and, lastly, the daughter of Bla, Ouree the Unclaimed.» «Does the Unclaimed have the right of disaster?» «Clearly,» the Seer said. «So be it,» I muttered, looking at Yuree with a strange feeling of anticipation surging in my blood. Thus it was that the winter passed. I will not speak much of the events, for such things are private and, except in times of disaster, kept within the hidehouse of pairmates. Let me say only that Young Til was shy and sent me away quickly when my duty was done, she being the first of my duties, the times chosen by the moon as interpreted by the Seer, and that Fanan was easily pleased, begged me to stay—I did, on two occasions until the sun was a redness, Fanan pleasing as well as being pleased; and that Ouree the Unclaimed was so grateful for my attentions that it made me feel ashamed. I found her to be untouched, of course, and it was the work of two nights to penetrate her tightness, and then she was tender, loving, grateful, and brought gifts of pretty red berries to Mar to thank her for allowing me to present her with child, for she was the first to miss her moon period. It was Yuree who was a puzzle. I went into her house with sinful anticipation, feeling very much as if I had, in my mind, joined the honorless inbreeders, to be so able to find joy in thinking of coupling with her. She was ready for me, allowed no preliminary play, but guided me to her quickly and was quickly done with me. However, of the four to whom I gave service, she was the last to miss her moon period, and thus after all the other three were finished with me I was still visiting the house of Yuree after two winter moons, much to Mar's disgust. So. It was, I must admit, an interesting winter, one which saw me out of my cave many nights, leaving me no time for the game. When I went back to it, having only Yuree left to service, I was slow to follow the lights, and we had to begin all over again. In view of later events I must depart from my honor and speak of my last night with Yuree. I went to her house, as was my duty, prepared for a joyless coupling quickly done and quickly finished, wondering if I was fated to spend my virile years servicing two women who could not, apparently, conceive. She awaited me. The fire was stacked with green wood, the house was warm, and she was in her couch, covered by her sleephides. I removed my clothing and joined her. I lay beside her, not speaking, waiting for the heat of her desirable body to prepare me. She touched me. It was something she had not done before. Her hand was warm and soft, and I responded immediately and started to mount her, to do my duty quickly. She would not open for me; instead, she began to use her lips on mine, to cling and love as the others had loved, and as she had not done. And it was good. I allowed her. «There is a change,» I sighed, as she kissed and clung and fondled. «That is because this is the last night,» she said. «How can you say?» «I know. I feel it,» she said. «Tonight I will conceive, and your duty will be finished, and I wish to make it memorable.» «Yes,» I said. For foolish moments I dreamed that the killbird had slept, leaving me to win Yuree, and that this was our first time and I was warm, and then I felt a pang of disloyalty. «I want to show you, Eban, what a woman can be,» she whispered, and continued to do things to me until, with a roar of need, I mounted her and she was alive and responsive and loving, and then it was ended. «Was it good?» she whispered. «Very good,» I said. «I wanted it to be good, so that you would remember,» she said. «There will be other times,» I said. «When your child is a walker there will be other times.» «No,» she said. «You will never touch me again.» There was something in her voice. I withdrew my slackness from her and cleaned myself, wondering. «But,» she said, «when you are with your skinny and ugly hag of an inbreeder, you will remember and lust for Yuree.» So much malice? I was stunned. But I spoke. «Mar is neither skinny nor ugly,» I said. «She is my pairmate by choice, Yuree. And although you were sweet, until this malice which I did not suspect came out in you, you are not the woman Mar is, for she knows delights which you have not imagined.» Her face darkened. «The art of love is hers,» I said, «and she uses her lips and her hot tongue in such ways as to make other women seem passive. So, Yuree, you have not hurt me. I will not lust for you.» «Killer,» she spat. «Know, then, that I have already missed my moon period and am with your child and that it is so for one reason and one alone. I will bear a boy. He will live and grow to kill you, killer, and be family head.» «Yuree, your hate has poisoned you. If it be a son, he will be a family member and have as much chance to win family head as the others. But do not poison his mind against me or I will try you for disloyalty.» «I hate you,» she said. «I'm glad your sickly infant son died.» I struck her across the face heavily, sending her head back against the couch, and then I left her to her own hate, much disturbed. Chapter Eight During our long periods of being alone, having no one in the world save ourselves, Mar and I had developed the habit of sharing every thought. Indeed, she questioned me closely when I returned from each of my duty periods with the four women I serviced and often laughed at my accounts. After my last visit to Yuree I was troubled and waited a day to speak with Mar. «The sickness of hate is in her,» Mar said. «Perhaps a child will change it.'» «She has right to hate me,» I said. «For I brought death to father, mother, family, pairmate.» «I'm sick of your blaming yourself for all of that,» Mar said. «Think of the good you've done for these people. Look at the love which is given you, with honor, by all save the soured one. Do you actually think she hates you?» «Are you saying she doesn't, when she told me she did, and promised to rear her son to kill me?» «She loved you, fool,» Mar said. «She has always loved you. She sent you to get the dragon guts. But she loved you. She thought you dead and took a weak man, and this has soured her, for she sees you with me and thinks it is her right to be at your side in your sleep couch.» «Wrong, wrong,» I said. «She hates me because of the death I brought into her life.» «Ha,» Mar said. «Go to her, then, tell her you are tired of the inbreeder and will be her pairmate, and see how quickly her frown changes.» «Mar,» I said, shocked. «Oh, I know you wouldn't,» she said. «You're much too honorable. But it is true, what I speak.» «Mar, have you ever doubted my love for you?» She smiled, came to me, pushed me back and put her sweet weight atop me. «Never,» she said. «My only regret is that I cannot give you babies.» «We have Margan.» «With the sickness, as you tell me, in her bones. Promise me one thing, Eban.» «Of course.» «Keep that our secret.» «The sickness?» «Yes.» «So be it.» «You will have children. Sons and daughters by all of them. The four.» «They will not be ours, but theirs.» «No,» she said. «We will make them ours, even the offspring of Yuree. You are family head. You can speak. You can demand the right of the father.» «All would give it gladly, save Yuree.» «And you will force it on her, or you will raise the thing you fear, a killer, in your bosom,» Mar said. «You are wise, as always,» I said. So we watched with interest as the spring came and a summer of joy began, the family happy, well fed, eager, industrious, together. Even Yuree seemed resigned. Bellies fattened with summer. We had come to share food, especially the sweets which came from our magic cave, with all. Huge and noisy gatherings took place in front of our cave, and Mar served the sweets and all grew fat and the looted wealth from the dragon of the hole kept us in arrow heads and hard axes. Rich in food, clad in the finest skins, swimmers for the harvesting, fruit on the trees, we prospered and swam together in the cool waters of the stream, and we hunters began to teach the boys and the women taught the females and suddenly summer was over and bellies were huge, all seven of the widows with child and all to be delivered within two moons. The time of the color of leaves came, and young Til was the first of my widows to birth, a girl. Now the village was a place of groans and scurrying women as child after child was born, not only to the seven widows but to the pairmates of Yorerie and Cree. Fanan give birth to a boy. Ouree the Unclaimed presented the family with a fine girl. Yuree, the last, birthed a girl. Ouree was weak, after the birth, and Mar moved her into our cave so that she could tend child and mother. Ouree was so gentle, so eager to please. She recovered, and the little girl was fat and healthy, sucking milk from Ouree with an eagerness which set us all laughing. Our daughter, Margan, fell in love with the baby. When Ouree was recovered and made preparation to move into her own house, Margan cried and protested. «Come stay with me, then,» Ouree said. «You stay us,» Margan lisped. «Why not?» Mar asked. «You are welcome. There is room.» «But you are pairmates and need your privacy,» Ouree said. «When we want privacy we will go into the cave of the games below,» Mar said. «Stay. Your daughter is our daughter, and our house is your house.» She stayed. I saw Yuree, baby on back, as I walked along the stream. «Why does the Unclaimed one live with you?» Yuree asked without greeting. «She and Mar are friends,» I said. «And she, being skinny and ugly like the inbreeder, appeals to you. Do you service them both at once?» «You have the tongue of an evil demon,» I said. «You failed me,» Yuree said. «How?» «It is a girl,» she said, speaking of her baby. «A very pretty little girl. She will have her mother's eyes and body.» «Eban…» «Yes, Yuree.» «A blessing.» «Gladly.» «Come lie with me. Make me with child now. I must have a son to care for me in my old age.» «I was never to touch you again,» I said, unable to resist. «I was angry. Come. I will make it nice for you.» «You know the custom,» I said. «Only when the baby walks.» «God curse the custom,» she said. It was only nights later when the women heard a wail from Yuree's tent and ran to find her holding the lifeless baby. When I arrived the women were already wailing. «It is God's curse,» Yuree said. «The baby died in her sleep.» My little girl. I had not known her, for Yuree had not even presented her for my inspection, and I was too concerned about Yuree's feelings to go to her. I grieved, inside, and walked away to let the women mourn and prepare the small body for burial. The Seer of Things Unseen caught me, took my arm. «I must speak,» she said. I nodded. «God did not come in the night,» she said. «The baby was smothered in her own bed, by her own sleepskins.» «How can this be?» «Ask Yuree,» she said. «Only a careless mother allows her baby to smother. Careless, or…» «Can you even suggest it?» I asked, shocked. «She wanted a boy. Already, even as you walked out the door, while she should have been mourning, she told me she demanded the right of the widow, and that means you to service her, now.» «If it is her right—» «But what did she do to earn that right before the baby walked?» Seer asked. «Seer,» I said, «you are a wise woman, but you are wrong. I have never told this. Only Mar knows. But in defense of my own life I have taken life, inbreeder life, and it is a horrible and saddening thing. No. You must not suggest it. Carelessness? Perhaps. Intent? No mother could do such.» «Women have done strange things for love,» Seer said. «And Yuree has had more than her share of grief. Perhaps it has sickened her mind.» «No, no,» I said. I could not even think it. But, gods of man, how many times I have wished that I had listened to the old Seer that night of the death of Yuree's girl baby. I went to Yuree's house to do my duty, and she wept and clung to me and begged me to stay the night, which I did, and then other nights, as the Seer decreed, judging Yuree's fertile period by the moon, and I, myself, took note of the time of Yuree's blooding, and when, going there on her request, I knew that she was not blooding at the time, I said to her, «Yuree, if you are missing your moon period my duty is finished.» «I confess,» she said. «I am missing it, but I am not sure. A few more nights to make certain, Eban.» «I cannot. I will go.» «Eban, please, for me. I am so lonely. I want your body so.» «No, Yuree,» I said. «A family head, of all people, must observe the customs.» «If you go I will kill myself,» she said. I went pale. «That is the sin of all sins,» I said. «Do not speak such evil.» «Go, then,» she said. «I hope you enjoy your rutting with your inbreeder.» Man, I suppose, is an imperfect creature and must live in an imperfect world. In my life there was only one unhappiness. Yuree. She was with child. Winter came. She would seek me out and beg me to come to her, to sneak into her house in the night. She said things like, «The inbreeder won't care.» Finally I had enough and I told her, «Yuree, I warn you, and it is a warning from the family head. Remember your honor. Observe our customs. Do your work and be happy or I will call the council of the entire family to punish you.» I spoke sternly and thought the matter settled, for she ceased to seek me out. Snow came, and the young were doing well. Ouree was like a member of our own family and her young one was a joy to me and to Mar. The two females fussed over the baby endlessly, aided by my daughter, Margan. I went back to my game, which was the same and boring, but I was getting some satisfaction out of doing it almost right every time. The thing came suddenly. We watched Margan play with the baby one night. There was a knocking on the plate and I opened it. Yuree was there. She had a longbow in her hands and a dragonskin arrow was in place, the bow stretched. It was pointed at me. «I give you one last chance,» Yuree said. «Leave them and come with me.» My impulse was to strike the bow from her hands, but there was a madness in her eyes. «Yuree,» I said gently. «Put aside the bow. Come. We will talk. All of us.» «Yes or no, killer,» she said. «Come with me or I will repay you in kind for the death you have given me.» «Yuree, Yuree,» I said soothingly, moving forward, seeing that she was maddened. I would knock the bow aside and the arrow would fly, if she released it, into one of the hard walls, doing no damage, but she saw my intent and with a wild cry loosed the arrow, which made a zipping sound as it passed my very cheek, and a cry of pain came from behind me even as I hit Yuree with my closed hand and sent her sprawling into the snow. I turned then and screamed. Mar was on her knees, and the arrow, so wickedly tipped with jagged dragonskin, was lodged deeply in her breast. I screamed my rage and pain and leaped to catch her as she fell forward. The arrow was deep. The head was jagged. And yet, it had to come out. «Eban,» she whispered. «Oh, Eban. Hold me.» «Yes, yes,» I said. I held her. «We must remove the arrow.» «No,» she said. «It hurts so.» «It must come out, and then we will fix it and you will be well again soon.» «No,» she whispered. «Eban…» And the dull look of death came to her eyes, which had been so alive and so loving, and I sat there, rocking her as the last of her breath went in a shudder and her legs did a violent little dance, and Margan was screaming and Ouree weeping and the baby crying, and maddened Yuree came, dragonskin knife in hand, screaming. My hardax is never far from my side and it was at my side, and with one arm supporting Mar's dead body I heaved the ax, and it took the killer in the stomach, burying itself. Yet still she came, the knife aimed at me. I rolled aside to dodge it and hit her with my closed hand, and she fell to the floor, bleeding, screaming now, and her blood mingled with Mar's and then she was dead. Go