He could never go back. He must make a new life for himself here, or go through what years remained to him as a ghost, a nothingness, a nonentity.
Until a few nights ago he had believed himself well on the way to building his new life. He had worthwhile work to do, a family, friends, a brother and sister, a second father, a loving and beloved wife. And then, in a blast of unseen lightning, his whole new world had crumbled around him and all the alienness had closed over him again. He was drowning in it, sinking in it… Even Damon, usually so close and friendly, his brother, had turned cold and strange.
Or was it Andrew himself who now saw strangeness in everything and everyone?
He saw Callista stir, and, suddenly apprehensive lest his thoughts should disturb her, gathered up his clothes and went away to bathe and dress.
When he came back, Callista had been wakened, and Ellemir had readied her for the day, dressing her in a clean nightgown, washing her, braiding her hair. Breakfast had been brought, and Damon and Ellemir were there, waiting for him around the table where the four of them had taken their meals during Callista’s illness.
But Ellemir was still standing over Callista, troubled. As Andrew came in, she said, and her voice held deep disquiet, “Callista, I wish you would let Ferrika look at you. I know she is young, but she was trained in the Amazon’s Guild-house, and she is the best midwife we have ever had at Armida. She—”
“The services of a midwife,” said Callista, with a trace of wry amusement, “are of all things the last I need, or am likely to need!”
“All the same, Callista, she is skilled in all manner of women’s troubles. She could certainly do more for you than I. Damon,” she appealed, “what do you think?”
He was standing at the window, looking out into the snow. He turned and looked at them, frowning a little. “No one has more respect than I for Ferrika’s talents and training, Elli. But I do not know if she would have the experience to deal with this. It is not commonplace, even in the Towers.”
Andrew said, “I don’t understand this at all! Is it still only the onset of menstruation? If it is as serious as this, perhaps,” and he appealed directly to Callista, “could it do any harm for Ferrika to look you over?”
Callista shook her head. “No, that has ended, a few days ago. I think” — she looked up at Damon, laughing — “I am simply lazy, taking advantage of a woman’s weakness.”
“I wish it were that, Callista,” Damon said, and he came and sat down at the table. “I wish I thought you would be able to get up today.” He watched her slowly, with lagging fingers, buttering a piece of the hot nut-bread. She put it to her mouth and chewed it, but Andrew did not see her swallow.
Ellemir broke a piece of bread. She said, “We have a dozen kitchen maids, and if I am out of the kitchen for a day or two, the bread is not fit to eat!”
Andrew thought the bread was much as usuaclass="underline" hot, fragrant, coarse-textured, the flour extended with the ground nut-meal which was the common staple food on Darkover. It was fragrant with herbs, and tasted good, but Andrew found himself resenting the strange coarse texture, the unfamiliar spices. Callista was not eating either, and Ellemir seemed troubled. She said, “Can I send for something else for you, Callista?”
Callista shook her head. “No, truly, I can’t, Elli. I am not hungry—”
She had eaten almost nothing in days. In God’s name, Andrew thought, what ails her?
Damon said, with sudden roughness, “You see, Callista? It is what I told you! You have been a matrix worker how long — nine years? You know what it means when you cannot eat!”
Her eyes looked frightened. She said, “I’ll try, Damon. Really I will,” and took a spoonful of the stewed fruit on her plate, choking it down reluctantly. Damon watched her, troubled, thinking that this was not what he had intended, to force her to pretend hunger when she had none. He said, staring out over the whipped-cream ridges of snow, purpling with the light, “If the weather would clear, I would send to Neskaya. Perhaps the leronis could come to look after you.”
“It looks like clearing now,” Andrew said, but Damon shook his head.
“It will be snowing harder than ever by tonight. I know the weather in these hills. Anyone setting forth this morning would be weathered in by midday.”
And indeed, soon after midday the snow began to drift down from the sky again in huge white flakes, slowly at first, then more and more heavily, in a resistless flood that blotted out the landscape and the ridge of hills. Andrew watched it, as he went from barn-tunnels to greenhouses, going through the motions of supervising stewards and handymen, with outrage and disbelief. How could any sky hold so much snow?
He came up again in late afternoon, as soon as he had completed the minimal work which was all that could be done these days. As always when he had been away from Callista for a little while, he was dismayed. It seemed that even since this morning she had grown whiter and thinner, that she looked ten years older than her twin. But her eyes blazed at him with welcome, and when he took her fingertips in his, she closed them over his hand, hungrily.
He said, “Are you alone, Callista? Where is Ellemir?”
“She has gone to spend a little time with Damon. Poor things, they have had so little time together lately, one or the other of them is always with me.” She shifted her body with that twinge of pain which seemed never to leave her. “Avarra’s mercy, but I am weary of lying in bed.”
He stooped over her, lifted her in his arms. “Then I will hold you for a little while in my arms,” he said, carrying her to a chair near the window. She felt like a child in his arms, loose and limp and light. Her head leaned wearily against his shoulder. He felt an aching tenderness, without desire — how could any man trouble this sick girl with desire? He rocked her back and forth, gently.
“Tell me what is going on, Andrew. I have been so isolated; the world could have come to an end and I would hardly have known.”
He gestured at the white featureless world of snow beyond the window. “Nothing much has been happening, as you can see. There is nothing to tell, unless you are interested in knowing how many fruits are ripening in the greenhouse.”
“Well, it is good to know that they have not yet been destroyed by the storm. Sometimes the windows break, and the plants are killed, but it would be early in the year for that,” she said, and leaned wearily back against him, as if the effort of talking had been too much for her.
Andrew sat holding her, content that she did not draw away from him, that she seemed now to crave contact with him as much as she had feared it before. Perhaps she was right: now that her normal mature cycles had begun again, with time and patience, the conditioning of the Tower could be overcome. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed asleep.
They sat there for some time, until Damon, abruptly coming into the room, stopped, in dismay and shock. He opened his mouth to speak, and Andrew caught directly from his mind the frightened urgency:
Andrew! Put her down, quickly, get away from her!
Andrew raised his head angrily, but at the very real distress in Damon’s thought he acted quickly, rising and carrying Callista to her bed. She lay still, unconscious, unmoving.