Sharra's Exile

  For a moment she was passive, startled, then went rigid, bending back and pushing me frantically away. “No! Don’t!”

  I let my arms drop and stood looking at her, slow fury heating my face. “That’s not the way you acted last night— nor just now! What is it that you want anyhow, Callina?”

  She bent her head. She said bitterly, as if from a long way off, “Does it matter what I want? Who has ever asked me? I am only a pawn in the game, to be moved about as they choose!”

  I took her hand in mine, and she did not pull it away. I said urgently, “Callina, you don’t have to do this! Beltran is disarmed, no longer a threat—”

  “Would you have me forsworn?”

  “Forsworn or dead rather than married to him,” I said, rage building in me. “You don’t know what he is!”

  She said, “I have given my word. I—” she looked up at me and suddenly her face crumpled into weeping. “Can’t you spare me this?”

  “Did you ever think that there are things you might have spared me?” I demanded. “So be it, Callina; I wish Beltran joy of his bride!” I turned my back on her, disregarding her stifled cry, and strode away.

  I don’t know where I thought I was going. Anywhere, out of there. A telepath is never at ease in crowds, and I have trouble coping with them. I know that a path cleared for me through the dancers; then, quite unexpectedly, a voice said, “Lew!” and I stopped cold, staring down at Dio.

  She was wearing a soft green gown, trimmed with white; her hair waved softly around her face, and she had done nothing to disguise the golden-brown freckles that covered her cheeks. She looked rosy and healthy, not the white, wasted, hysterical woman I had last seen in the hospital on Vainwal. She waited a minute, then said, as she had said the first time we came face to face, “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance, Dom Lewis?”

  I blinked at her. I must have looked a great gawk, staring with my mouth open.

  “I didn’t know you were in Thendara!”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” she retorted. “Do you think I am an invalid? Where else would I be, at Council season? Yet you have not even paid me a courtesy call, nor sent flowers on the morning of Festival! Are you so angry because I failed you?”

  A dancing couple reeled within a half-step of us, and a strange woman said irritably, “Must you block the dancing floor? If you are not dancing, at least get out of the way of those who are!”

  I took Dio’s elbow, not too gently, and steered her out on the sidelines. “I am sorry—I did not know you wanted flowers from me. I did not know you were in Thendara.” Suddenly all my bitterness overflowed. “I do not yet know the courtesies of dealing with a wife who abandoned me!”

  “I abandoned—” she broke off and stared at me. She said, evidently trying to steady her voice. “I abandoned you? I thought you divorced me because I could not give you a healthy son—”

  “Who told you that?” I demanded, grasping her shoulders until she winced; I loosened my grip, but went on urgently, “I went back to the hospital! They told me you had left, with your brothers—”

  Gradually the color left her face, till the freckles stood out dark against her white skin. She said, “Lerrys bundled me onto the ship before I could walk…He had to carry me. He told me that as the Head of a Domain, you could not marry a woman who could not give you an Heir—”

  “Zandru send him scorpion whips!” I swore. “He came to me, just after I came here—he threatened to kill me—said you had been through enough—Dio, I swear I thought it was what you wanted—”

  Her eyes were beginning to overflow and I saw her bite her lip; Dio could never bear to cry where anyone could see her. She put out a hand to me, then drew it back and said, “I come here to Festival—hoping to see you—and I find you in Callina’s arms!” She turned her back on me, and started to move away; I held her back with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Lerrys has made enough mischief,” I said. “We’ll have this out with him, and we’ll do it now! Is he here, that damned mischief-maker?”

  “How dare you speak that way of my brother?” Dio demanded inconsistently. “He was doing what he thought was best for me! At that point I was hysterical, I never wanted to see you again—”

  “And I was complying with your wishes,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Dio, what’s the use of all this? It’s done. I did what I thought you wanted—”

  “And I come here to find you and see if it was what you wanted,” Dio flung at me, “and I find you already consoling yourself with that damned frozen stick of a Keeper! I hope she strikes you with lightning when you touch her—you deserve it!”

  “Don’t talk that way about Callina—” I said sharply.

  “She is sworn Keeper; what does she want with my husband?”

  “You made it very clear that I was not your husband—”

  “Then why was it I who was served with notice of a divorce? What a fool I will look—” Again she looked as if she were going to cry. I put my arm around her, trying to comfort her, but she pulled herself angrily away. “If that’s what you want, you are welcome to it! You and Callina—”

  I said, “Don’t be a fool, Dio! Callina will be handfasted to Beltran within the hour! I couldn’t stop her—”

  “I’ve no doubt you tried,” Dio retorted. “I saw you!”

  I sighed. Dio was determined to make a scene. I still thought we should settle this in private, but I was on guard, too. She had made me feel like a fool, not the other way around; and she had had every right to leave me after the suffering I had put her through; but I did not want to be reminded again of the tragedy, I was still too raw about it. “Dio, this is neither the time nor the place—”

  “Can you think of a better?” She was furious; I didn’t blame her. If Lerrys had been there, I think I would have killed him. So she had not left me, after all, of her own free will. Yet, as I looked at her angry face, I realized that there was no way to go back where we had left off.

  Others were looking at us curiously. I was not surprised; I, at least, must have been broadcasting my emotions—which were largely confusion—all through the ballroom. I said, “We had better dance,” and touched her arm. It was not a couple-dance and I was grateful; I did not want quite that much intimacy, not now, not here, not with all that lay between us. I moved into the outer ring of men, and Dio let Linnell move to her side and draw her into the circle. Strange, I thought, that Linnell, my closest kinswoman, did not know of our brief marriage nor the disastrous way in which it had ended. It was not, after all, the sort of story to tell a young woman on the verge of her own marriage. I saw how she looked at Derik as she pulled him into the set. Then the music began and I gave myself up to it, as the figure of the dance swept Dio toward me, with a formal bow, and away again. At last, as the dance ended, we faced one another again and bowed. I saw Derik slide his arm through Linnell’s, and was left with Dio again.

  I said formally, “May I bring you some refreshment?”

  Her eyes glinted tears. “Must you be so formal? Is this nothing but a game to you?”

  I shook my head, tucked my hand under her arm and led her toward the buffet. Her head hardly came up to my shoulder. I had forgotten what a little thing she was; I always remembered her as being taller. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself, proud and independent, perhaps it was only that on Vainwal, like many women, she had worn high-heeled shoes, and here she had reverted to the low soft sandals that women wore in the Domains. The pale green of her gown made her hair shine reddish gold.

  Our separation need not be final. Dio as Lady Alton, and we could live at Armida… and for a moment I was overcome with a flood of homesickness for the hills of my home, the long shadows at twilight, the way the sun lowered over the line of tall trees behind the Great House… I could have this still, I could have it with Dio—

  The long refreshment tables were laden with every kind of delicacy one could imagine. I dipped her up a cup of some sweet red fruit drink; tasting it,
discovered it had been heavily laced with some strong and colorless spirit, for a single glass made me dizzy. Dio, watching as I drank, set hers down untasted and said, “I don’t want to get drunk here tonight. There’s something—I don’t know what it is. I’m frightened.”

  I took that seriously. Dio’s instincts were good; and she was one of the hypersensitive Ridenows. Nevertheless, I said, “What’s wrong? Is it only that there are Terrans and off-worlders here tonight?” Lawton was there, with several functionaries from the Terran HQ, and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if Kathie would see the Terran uniforms, appeal to them for protection, accuse us of kidnapping or worse. Most Terrans knew nothing of matrix technology, and some of them were ready to believe anything about it. And I was quite sure that what Callina and I had done was now against some law or other.

  Dio was lightly in rapport with me, and she turned to say with asperity, “Can’t you get Callina out of your mind for a minute, even when you are talking with me?”

  I could hardly believe this; Dio was jealous? “Do you care, preciosa?”

  “I shouldn’t, but I do,” she said, raising her face to me, suddenly serious. “I think I wouldn’t mind… if she wanted you… but I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t think you know everything about Callina.”

  “And of course, you do?”

  She said, “It was I who should have gone to the Comyn Tower, to be trained as—as Ashara’s surrogate. I did not want to be nothing more than—than a pawn for Ashara. I had known one of the—one of her other under-Keepers. And so I made certain that I was—” she hesitated, colored a little—“disqualified.”

  I understood that. There is now no reason why a Keeper must be a sworn virgin, set apart, consecrated, near-worshipped. For good reasons, they remain celibate while they are functioning as Keeper in a circle; but not in the old, superstitious, ritualistic way. There had been a time when a woman chosen as Keeper entered upon a lifelong sentence of alienation, chastity, separation; not now. Yet, for some reason or another, Ashara chose her under-Keepers from those who were trained as virgins; and Dio’s way was as good as any to avoid that sentence.

  I understood, suddenly, why Callina had rebuffed me. The marriage with Beltran was to be empty ceremonial, politically arranged; Callina had no intention of giving up her role as Keeper in Ashara’s place. I should have been complimented—she was well aware that I would not accept that kind of separation. She was not indifferent to me; and she had let me know it. And for that reason she dared not let me come near.

  Folly, folly twice over, then, to love the forbidden. Yet the thought that she might fall into Beltran’s keeping frightened me. Would he really be content with a formal arrangement, where he had the name of consort, and no other privileges? Callina was a beautiful woman, and Beltran was not indifferent—

  “Lew, you are as far away from me as if you were on Vainwal again,” Dio said irritably, and took the glass of fruit juice I had dipped up for her. I watched her, wondering what would come next. I was a fool for thinking, even for a moment, of Callina, who was forbidden to me, who had put herself beyond my reach… Keeper or no, Beltran’s wife would be forbidden; I was sworn Comyn and they had conferred Comyn immunity upon him. That was a fact, one I could neither climb over nor go round. And this business with Dio loomed between me and any life I might make for myself. I recognized, with a surge of humiliation, it was not for me to say, I will have this woman or that; it was, rather, which of them would have me. I seemed to have no choice in the matter, and in any case I was no prize for a woman. Mutilated, damned, haunted.. .1 forced down the sickening surge of self-pity, and looked up at Dio.

  “I must pay my respects to my foster-sister; will you join me?”

  She shrugged, saying, “Why not?” and followed me. A nagging unease, half telepathic, beat at me. I saw Callina, dancing with Beltran, and stubbornly looked away. If that was her choice, so be it. Viciously, I hoped he’d try to kiss her. Lerrys, Dyan? If they were here, they were in costume and unrecognizable. Half the Terran colony could be here tonight, and I would not know.

  But Linnell was dancing with someone I did not recognize, and I turned to where Merryl Aillard and Derik were chatting idly in a corner. Derik looked flushed, and his voice was thick and unsteady. “Ev’n, Lew.”

  “Derik, have you seen Regis Hastur? What’s his costume?”

  “D’know,” Derik said thickly, “I’m Derik, tha’s all I know. Have ’nough trouble ’memberin’ that. You try it sometime.”

  “A fine spectacle,” I muttered, “Derik, I wish you would remember who you are! Merryl, can’t you get him out of here and sober him up a little? Derik, do you realize what a show you are giving the Terrans and our kinfolk?”

  “I think—forget y’self,” he mumbled, “Not your affair wha’ I do—ain’t drunk anyhow…”

  “Linnell should be very proud of you,” I snapped. “Merryl, go and drag him under a cold shower or something, can’t you?”

  “L’nell’s mad at me,” Derik spoke in tones of intimate self-pity. “Won’ even dansh…”

  “Who would?” I muttered, standing on both feet so I would not kick him. It was bad enough to need a Regency in times like these, but when the heir-presumptive to the crown makes a drunken spectacle of himself before half of Thendara, that was worse. I resolved to hunt up Hastur, who had authority I didn’t, and influence with Derik—at least I hoped so. Merryl did, but he was no help. I scanned the riot of costumes, looking for Danvan Hastur, or even Regis. Or perhaps I could find Linnell, who might be able to persuade or shame him into leaving the room and sobering up.

  One costume suddenly caught my eye. I had seen such harlequins in old books on Terra; parti-colored, a lean beaked cap over a masked face, lean and somehow horrible. Not in itself, for the costume was no worse than grotesque, but a sort of atmosphere—I told myself not to imagine things.

  “No, I don’t like him either,” said Regis quietly at my side. “And I don’t like the atmosphere of this room—or this night.”

  I said, “I keep thinking I have seen him before.” I did not know what I was going to say until I heard myself saying it. “I feel—I feel as if all hell was going to break loose!”

  Regis nodded gravely. He said, “You have some of the Aldaran Gift, don’t you? Foresight…” he saw Dio was still at my elbow and bowed to her. “Greetings, vai domna. You are Lerrys’s sister, are you not?”

  I looked again at the harlequin-masked man. I felt I should know him, that somehow his name was on the very tip of my tongue. At the same time I felt a curious twisting fear; why could I not remember, not recognize him?

  But before I could force myself further, the dome lights were switched off. Immediately the room was flooded with streaming moonlight. There was a soft “A-ahh—” from the thronged guests as through the clearing transparency of the dome, the four moons floated high, in full conjunction, one above the other; the pale violet face of Liriel, sea-green Idriel, the peacock shimmer of Kyrrdis, and the pale pearl of Mor-mallor. I felt a faint touch on my arm and looked down at Dio.

  This is not how I had imagined we would return home together… for a moment I was not sure whether it was her thought or mine. Couples were moving onto the floor for the moonlight dance which was traditionally a dance for pledged couples; I saw Linnell approaching Derik—drunk or no, she would consider herself bound and obligated for this. I was unable, suddenly, to resist the old tie, the old attraction; I drew Dio into my arms and we moved onto the floor. Over her shoulder I saw that Regis was standing alone at the edge of the dance floor, his face cold and detached, in spite of the women who made a point of standing conveniently near in case he should choose one of them. Dio felt warm and familiar in my arms. Was this what I had wanted all along? I found that I resented that smile which took so much for granted. Yet the rhythm of the music pounded in my blood. I had forgotten this—the sense of being altogether in key with one another, resonating to the same music, like a single body mo
ving to the sound, and as she had done once before, she reached out, almost without volition, and the mind-touch came between us, a locking closer than any physical intimacy… closeness, home, fulfillment. As the final chord of music rang in the night, I caught her close and kissed her, hard.

  The silence was anticlimax. Dio slid from my arms, and I felt cold and alone again. The lights, coming on again under the dome, caught her looking up at me with a strange smile.

  “So I have had that much of you,” she said softly. “Was it never any more than that, Lew—that I was a woman, and you were alone and—in need? Was it never more than that?”

  “I don’t know, Dio. I swear I don’t know,” I said wearily. “Can’t we leave it for now, and settle it sometime when— when half of Thendara isn’t watching us?”

  She said, unexpected, her face very grave, “I don’t think we will be given that much time. I’m frightened, Lew. Something is very wrong. On the surface, everything’s as it’s always been, but there’s something—something that shouldn’t be here, and I don’t know what—”

  Dio had the sensitive Ridenow gift; I trusted her instincts. But what could I do? Certainly nothing could be done here, no one would dare strike at any of us before the City and the assembled guests. Still, Regis had said very much the same thing, and I was myself uneasy.

  As I threaded my way through the crowd, in search of Linnell or Callina, I saw again the stranger in the harlequin costume. Whom did I know who was tall and rangy, like that, why did he strike me as strange, over-familiar? He was too tall to be Lerrys, yet it seemed the hostility which beat out toward me from him was very much like what I had sensed in Lerrys when he warned me to stay away from Dio.

  (And Dio was at my side. Would Lerrys make good his threats, here and now?)