Leonie said, “And he is your friend.”
Damon nodded, saying, “My friend. And for Callista’s rescue we linked together — through the matrix.” There was no need to say more. It was the strongest bond known, stronger than blood-kin, stronger than the tie of lovers. It had brought Damon and Ellemir together, as it had brought Andrew and Callista.
Leonie sighed. “Is it so? Then I suppose I must accept it, whatever his birth or caste. Since he has laran, he is a suitable husband, if any man living can truly be a suitable husband for a woman Keeper-trained!”
“There are times when I forget he is not one of us,” Damon said. “Then there are other times when he seems strange, almost alien, but the difference is one only of custom and culture.”
“Even that can make a great difference,” Leonie said. “I remember when Melora Aillard was stolen away by Jalak of Shainsa, and what she endured there. No marriage even between Domains and Dry Towns has ever endured without tragedy. And a man from another world and sun must be even more alien than this.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Damon said. “In any case Andrew is my friend and I will support him in his suit.”
Leonie slumped in her saddle. “You would not give your friendship, nor link through a matrix, with one unworthy,” she said. “But even if all you say is true, how can such a marriage be anything but disaster? Even if he were one of our own, fully understanding the grip of the Tower on a Keeper’s body and mind, it would be near to impossible. Would you have dared so much?”
Damon flinched away from the question. She could not have meant it, not as he thought she meant it.
They were not living in the days before the Ages of Chaos, when the Keepers were mutilated, even neutered, made less than women. Oh, yes, the Keepers were still trained, Damon knew, with a terrible discipline, to live apart from men, reflexes deeply built into body and brain. But no longer changed. And surely Leonie could not have known… or, Damon thought, he was the one man she would never have asked that question. Surely it was innocent, surely she never knew. He steeled himself against Leonie’s innocence, forced himself to look at her, to say in a low voice, “Willingly, Leonie, if I loved as Andrew loved.”
As hard as he fought to keep his voice steady and impassive, something of his inward struggle communicated itself to Leonie. She looked up, quickly and for a bare moment, a second or less. Their eyes met, but Leonie quickly looked away.
Ellemir, Damon reminded himself desperately. Ellemir, my beloved, my promised wife. But his voice was calm. “Try to meet Andrew without prejudice, Leonie, and I think you will see that he is such a man as you would willingly have given Callista in marriage.”
Leonie had mastered herself again. “All the more for your urging, Damon. But even if all you say is true, I am still reluctant.”
“I know,” Damon said, looking down the road. They were now within sight of the great front gates of Armida, the hereditary estate of the Domain of Alton. Home, he thought, and Ellemir waiting for him. “But even if all you say is true, Leonie, I do not know what we can do to stop Callista. She is no silly young girl in the grip of infatuation; she is a woman grown, Tower-trained, skilled, accustomed to having her own way, and I think she will do her will, regardless of us all.”
Leonie sighed. She said, “I would not force her back unwilling; the burden of a Keeper is too heavy to be borne unconsenting. I have borne it a lifetime, and I know.” She seemed weary, weighed down by it. “Yet Keepers are not easy to come by. If I can save her for Arilinn, Damon, you know I must.”
Damon knew. The old psi gifts of the Seven Domains, bred into the genes of the Comyn families hundreds or thousands of years ago, were thinned now, dying out. Telepaths were rarer than ever before. It could no longer be taken for granted that even the sons and daughters of the direct line of each Domain would have the gift, the inherited psi power of his House. And now, not many cared. Damon’s elder brother, heir to the Ridenow family of Serrais, had no laran. Damon, himself, was the only one of his brothers to possess laran in full measure, and he had been in no way specially honored for it. On the contrary, his work in the Tower had made his brothers scorn him as something less than a man. It was hard to find telepaths strong enough for Tower work. Some of the ancient Towers had been closed and stood dark, no longer teaching, training, working with the ancient psi sciences of Darkover. Outsiders, those with only minimal Comyn blood, had been admitted to the lesser Towers, though Arilinn kept to the old ways and allowed only those closely related by blood to the Domains to come there. And few women could be found with the strength, the psi skill, the stamina — and the courage and willingness to sacrifice almost everything which made life dear to a woman of the Domains — to endure the terrible discipline of the Keepers, Who would they find to take Callista’s place?
Either way, then, was tragedy. Arilinn must lose a Keeper — or Andrew a wife, Callista a husband. Damon sighed deeply and said, “I know, Leonie,” and they rode in silence toward the great gates of Armida.
Chapter Two
From the outer courtyard of Armida, Andrew Carr saw the approaching riders. He summoned grooms and attendants for their horses, then went into the main hall to announce their coming.
“That will be Damon coming back,” Ellemir said in excitement, and ran out into the courtyard. Andrew followed more slowly, Callista close at his side.
“It is not only Damon,” she said, and Andrew knew, without asking, that she had used her psi awareness to guess at the identity of the riders. He was used to this now, and it no longer seemed uncanny or frightening.
She smiled up at him, and once again Andrew was struck by her beauty. He tended to forget it when he was not looking at her. Before he ever set eyes on her, he had come to know her mind and heart, her gentleness, her courage, her quick understanding. He had come to know, and value, her gaiety and wit, even when she was alone, terrified, imprisoned in the darkness of Corresanti.
But she was beautiful too, very beautiful, a slender, long-limbed young woman, with coppery hair loosely braided down her back, and gray eyes beneath level brows. She said as she walked at his side, “It is Leonie, the leronis of Arilinn. She has come, as I asked.”
He took her hand lightly in his own, though this was always a risk. He knew she had been trained and disciplined, by methods he could never guess, to avoid the slightest touch. But this time, although her fingers quivered, she let them lie lightly in his, and it seemed that the faint trembling in them was a storm which shook her, inwardly, through her schooled calm. He could just see, faintly, on the slender hands and wrists, a number of tiny scars, like healed cuts or burns. Once he had asked her about them. She had shrugged them away, saying only, “They are old, long healed. They were… aids to memory.” She had not been willing to say more, but he could guess what she meant, and horror shook him again. Could he ever truly know this woman?
“I thought you were Keeper of Arilinn, Callista,” he asked now.
“Leonie has been Keeper since before I was born. I was taught by Leonie to take her place one day. I had already begun to work as Keeper. It is for her to release me, if she will.” Again there was the faint shivering, the quickly withdrawn glance. What hold did that terrible old woman have over Callista?