He tucked away his matrix and followed her. He had learned to enjoy riding—on Terra it was an exotic luxury for rich eccentrics, but here on the Plains of Arilinn it was a commonplace means of getting around, since the air-cars, matrix-powered, were very rare and used only by the Comyn; and those only under very special circumstances.
He followed her to the stables without demur; but halfway down the stairs she said, “Perhaps we should ask one or two of the others to come?”
“Just as you like,” he replied, slightly surprised. She hadn’t been particularly friendly before and he hadn’t expected that she had much interest in his company. But Mesyr was busy about some domestic affairs somewhere in the Tower, Rannirl had some unspecified business in the matrix laboratory—he tried to explain it, but Kerwin couldn’t understand more than one word in five, he didn’t have the technical background—Corus was in the relays, Kennard’s bad leg was bothering him, and Taniquel was resting for her shift in the relays later that night. So in the end they went out alone, Auster having curtly refused an offer to join them.
Kennard had placed a horse at Kerwin’s disposal, a tall rangy black mare from his own estates; Kerwin understood that the Armida horses were famous throughout the Domains. Neyrissa had a silvery-grey pony with gold-colored mane and tail, which she said came from the Hellers. She took her hawk on the saddle-block before her; she wore a grey-and-crimson cape and a long full skirt that Kerwin finally realized was a divided skirt cut like very full trousers. As she took the bird from the hawkmaster, she glanced at him and said, “There is a well-trained sentry-hawk that Kennard has given you leave to use; I heard him.”
“I don’t know anything of hawking,” Kerwin said, shaking his head. He had learned to ride acceptably, but he didn’t know how to handle hunting-birds and wasn’t going to pretend he did.
There were a few curious stares and murmurs, which Neyrissa ignored, as they rode through the fringes of the town. He realized he had seen almost nothing of the city of Arilinn—which, he had heard, was the third or fourth largest city in the Seven Domains—and decided he would go exploring some day. Neyrissa’s cape was flung back, revealing her greying copper hair coiled in braids around her head. Because it was cold, Kerwin had put his leather ceremonial cape over his Terran clothing, and, hearing the murmurs, seeing the awed faces, he realized that they took him for any other member of the Tower circle. Was this what the people in Thendara had thought, his first night on Darkover?
Outside the gates of Arilinn the plains stretched wide, with clumps of bushes here and there, a few tracks and an old cart road, now deserted. They rode for an hour or so beneath the lowering sky, in the pale-purple light of the high sun. At last Neyrissa drew her horse to a walk, saying, “There is good hunting here. We should get some birds, or a rabbithorn or two… Elorie hasn’t been eating much lately. I’d like to tempt her with something good.”
Kerwin had been thinking of hawking, actually, as an exotic sport, an alien thing done for excitement; for the first time he realized that in a culture like this one, it was a very utilitarian way to keep meat on the table. Perhaps, he thought, he ought to learn it. It seemed to be one of the practical skills of a gentleman —or for that matter, he thought, watching Neyrissa’s small sturdy hands as she unhooded her hawk, of a lady. One didn’t think of noblewomen hunting for the pot. But of course that was how hawking had begun, as a way of pot-hunting for the kitchen! And while a lady might not be able to do much with large meat animals, there was no reason a woman shouldn’t equal or surpass a man at this skill. Kerwin suddenly felt very useless.
“Never mind,” said Neyrissa, glancing up at him, and he realized they were still touched by the fringes of rapport. “You’ll learn. Next time I’ll find you a verrin hawk. You’re tall enough and strong enough to carry one.”
She tossed the hawk high into the air; it took off, winging higher and higher, and Neyrissa watched the flight, her hands shading her eyes. “There,” she said in a whisper, “he has sighted his prey…”
Kerwin looked, but could see no trace of the bird. “Surely you can’t see that far, Neyrissa?”
She looked up impatiently. Of course not, rapport with hawk and sentry-bird is one of our family gifts. The thought was careless, with the very surface of her mind, and Kerwin realized that there was a strong rapport still between them, as with a part of his mind he felt flight, long pinions beating, the all-encompassing excitement of the chase, seeing the world wheeling below, stooping, striking a rush of ecstasy through his whole body… Shaking his head in wonder, Kerwin brought himself back to earth, following Neyrissa as she rode swiftly toward the spot where the hawk had brought his kill to the ground. She gestured to the falconer, following them at a distance, to take up the small dead bird and carry it on his saddle; the hawk stood on her glove, and Neyrissa took the head of the dead bird and fed it, still warm, to the hawk. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed;
Kerwin wondered if she, too, had shared the excitement of that kill; he watched the hawk tearing at the blood and sinews with a sense of excitement combined with revulsion.
Neyrissa looked up at him and said, “She feeds only from my glove; no well-trained bird will taste her own kill until it is given her. Enough—” She wrenched the bloody tidbit away from the cruel beak, explaining, “I want another bird or so.” Again she flung the hawk into the air and again Kerwin, sensing the thread of rapport between woman and hawk, followed it in his mind, knowing he was not prying, that she had somehow opened to him to share the ecstasy of flight, the long strong soaring, the strike, the gushing blood…
As the falconer brought the head of the second bird to Neyrissa, through the excitement and revulsion, he became abruptly aware of how deeply he was sharing this with Neyrissa, of arousal, almost sexual, deep in his body. Angrily, Kerwin turned away from the thought, troubled and shamed lest Neyrissa should be aware of it. He wasn’t trying to seduce her… he didn’t even like her! And the last thing he wanted, here, was to complicate his life with any women!
Yet as the sun lowered, and the hawk climbed the sky again and again, striking and killing, Kerwin was drawn once more into the ecstatic rapport of woman and falcon, blood and terror and excitement. At last Neyrissa turned to the falconer, said, “No more, take the birds back,” and drew her horse up, breathing in long, slow breaths as she watched him ride away. Kerwin was sure she had forgotten him. Without a word she turned her horse back toward the distant gates of Arilinn.
Kerwin rode after her, curiously subdued. A wind was rising, and he drew his cloak carefully around his head. Riding after Neyrissa’s shrouded figure, with the dim red sun low in the sky and a crescent of violet moon low over a distant hill, pale and shadowy, he had the curious sense that he was alone on the face of this world with the woman, her head turned away, riding after her as the falcon had pursued the fleeing bird… He dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode after her, racing as if on the wings of the flying wind, lost in the excitement of the chase… clinging to his horse with his knees, by instinct, his whole mind caught up in the excitement of the chase, awareness surging in him. As he rode, he was faintly aware of the still-lingering rapport with the woman, the excitement in her own body, her awareness of the pursuing hoofs, the long chase, a strange hunger not unmixed with fear… Images flooded his mind, overtaking her, snatching her from her horse, flinging her to the ground… it was a flooding, cresting sexual excitement, sharing it with her, so that unconsciously he speeded his mount, till he was at her very heels at the gate of the city…
Realization flooded over him. What was he doing? He was an invited guest here, a co-worker, now sworn to them; a civilized man, not a bandit or a hawk! The blood pounded in his temples, and he avoided Neyrissa’s eyes as grooms came to take their horses. They dismounted; yet he sensed that she too was weak with excitement, tha’t she could hardly stand. He felt ashamed and troubled by the prevalence of the sexual fantasy, aghast at the thought that she had shared it. In the
small dimensions of the stable she moved past him, their bodies not quite touching, yet he was very aware of the woman under the folded cloak, and he ducked his head to conceal the color that flooded through his face.
Just beyond the Veil, on the inner staircase, she suddenly stopped and raised her eyes to him. She said quietly, “I am sorry. I had forgotten—please believe me, I did not do that willingly. I had forgotten that you would not—not yet be able to barricade, if it was unwelcome to you.”
He looked at her, a little shamefaced, hardly taking it in that she had formed and shared that curious fantasy. Trying to be polite, he said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does,” she said angrily. “You don’t understand. I had forgotten what it would mean to you, and it is not what it would mean to one of us.” Abruptly her mind was open to him and he was shockingly aware of the taut excitement in her, nakedly sexual, now unmasked by the symbolism of the falcon-hunt. He felt troubled, embarrassed. She said, in a low, vicious voice, “I told you; you do not understand; I should not have done that to you unless your barriers were adequate to block it, and they were not. In a man—in one of our own—the fact that you accepted it and—and shared it—would mean something more than it does to you. It is my fault; it happens sometimes, after rapport. It is my failure. Not yours, Kerwin; you are not bound by anything. Don’t trouble yourself; I know you don’t want—”She drew a long breath, looking straight at him, and he could feel her anger and frustration.
Kerwin said, troubled, still only half understanding, “Neyrissa, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—to do anything to offend or hurt you—”
“I know that, damn you,” she said in a rage. “I tell you: It happens sometimes. I have been a monitor for enough years that I know I am responsible for it. I misjudged the level of your barriers, that is all! Stop making a thing of it, and get control of yourself before we spread this all through Arilinn! I can handle it; you can’t, and Elorie is young. I won’t have her disturbed with this nonsense!”
It was like a sudden flooding with ice water, drowning it all, drenching his awareness of the woman, in shock and awareness, that the other telepaths here might pick up his fantasies, his needs… He felt naked and exposed, and Neyrissa’s rage was like crimson lightning through the flooding shock. He felt stripped, shamed to the ultimate. Stammering a sickened apology, he fled up the stairs and took refuge in his own room. He was still not entirely aware what had happened, but it troubled him.
Long introspection told him that concealment of emotions was impossible in a telepath group; and when they met again, though he was worried for fear his shameful inability to block his own thoughts should have spoilt the ease with which he was accepted, no one spoke of it or even seemed to think about it. He was beginning to understand a little what it meant to be open, even to your innermost thoughts, to a group of outsiders. He felt flayed, embarrassed, as if he had been stripped nude and displayed; but he supposed none of them had gone through life without an embarrassing thought, and he’d simply have to get used to it.
And at least he knew, now, that there was no use trying to pretend with Neyrissa. She knew him, she had gone, as a monitor, deep into his body, and now into his mind too, even those bare spots he would rather she hadn’t seen. And she still accepted him. It was a good feeling. Paradoxically he didn’t like her any better than he had before, but now he knew that didn’t matter; they had shared something, and accepted it.
He had been at Arilinn about forty days when it occurred again to him that he had seen nothing of the city, and one morning he asked Kennard—he was not sure of his status here—if he could go and explore. Kennard stared briefly, and said, “Why not?” Then, breaking out of reverie, said, “Zandru’s hells, youngster, you don’t have to ask permission to do anything you please. Go alone, or one of us will come and show you about, or take one of the kyrri to keep you from getting lost. Suit yourself!”
Auster turned from the fireplace—they were all in the big hall—and said sourly, “Don’t disgrace us by going in those clothes, will you?”
Anything Auster said always roused Kerwin’s determination to do exactly that. Rannirl said, “You’ll be stared at in those things, Jeff.”
“He’ll be stared at anyway,” Mesyr said.
“Nevertheless. Come along, I’ll find you some of my things—we’re just about the same height, I think —for the time being. And we ought to do something about getting you a proper outfit, too.”
Kerwin felt ridiculous when he got into the short laced jerkin, the long blouse with loose sleeves, the full breeches coming down only to the top of his boots. Rannirl’s notions of color were not his, either; if he had to wear Darkovan clothing—and he supposed he did look pretty silly in Terran uniform—he needn’t go about in a magenta doublet with orange insets! At least, he hoped not!
He was surprised, though, to discover, glancing into a mirror, how the flamboyant outfit suited him. It showed to advantage the unusual height and coloring that had always made him feel awkward in Terran clothing. Mesyr cautioned him against wearing any headgear; Arilinn Tower telepaths showed their red heads proudly, and this protected them against accidental injury or insult. On a world of daily violence like Darkover, where street riots were a favorite form of showing high spirits, Jeff Kerwin conceded that this probably made good sense.
As he walked in the streets of the city—he had chosen to go alone—he was conscious of stares and whispers, and nobody jostled him. It was a strange city to him; he had grown up in Thendara, and the dialect here was different, and the cut of the clothing the women wore, longer skirts, fewer of the imported Terran climbing jackets and more of the long hooded capes, on men and women both. The footgear of a Terran did not suit the Darkovan clothing he was wearing—Rannirl, taller than Kerwin, had surprisingly small feet for a man, and his boots had not fitted—so on an impulse, passing a street-shop where boots and sandals were displayed, Kerwin went inside and asked to see a pair of boots.
The proprietor seemed so awed and respectful that Kerwin began to wonder if he had committed some social error—evidently the Comyn rarely went into ordinary shops—until the bargaining began. Then the man kept trying so hard to shift Kerwin from the modestly-priced boots he had chosen to the most expensive and well-crafted pairs in the shop, that Kerwin grew angry and began to bargain hotly. The shopkeeper kept insisting with a beautifully-genuine distress that these poor things were not worthy of the vai dom. Finally Kerwin settled on two pairs, one of riding boots, and one set of the soft low-cut suede boots that all the men of Arilinn seemed to wear all the time indoors. Taking out his wallet, he asked, “What do I owe you?”
The man looked shocked and offended. “What have I done to merit this insult, vai dom? You have lent grace to me and to my shop; I cannot accept payment!”
“Oh, look here,” Kerwin protested. “You mustn’t do that—”
“I have told you these poor things are not worthy of your attention, vai dom, but if the High-lord would venture to accept from me a pair truly worthy of his notice—”
“Hells’s bells,” muttered Kerwin, wondering what was going on and what Darkovan taboo he’d blundered into, unknowing, this time.
The man gave Kerwin a sharp look, then said, “Forgive my presumption, vai dom, but you are the high-lord Comyn Kerwin-Aillard, are you not?”
Recalling the custom that gave a Darkovan child the name and rank of the highest-ranking parent, Kerwin admitted it, and the man said, firmly and respectfully, but rather as if he were instructing a retarded child in suitable manners, “It is not the custom to accept payment for anything that a Comyn high-Lord condescends to accept, sir.”
Kerwin gave in gracefully, not wanting to make a scene, but he felt embarrassed. How the devil could he get the other things he wanted? Just go and ask for them? The Comyn seemed to have a nice little racket going, but he wasn’t larcenous enough to enjoy it. He was used to working for what he wanted, and paying for it.
He tu
cked the package under his arm, and walked along the street. It felt curiously different and pleasant, to walk through a Darkovan city as a citizen, not an outsider, not an interloper. He thought briefly of Johnny Ellers, but that was another life, and the years he had spent with the Terran Empire were like a dream.
“Kerwin?”
He looked up to see Auster, clad in green and scarlet, standing before him. Auster said, pleasantly for him, “It occurred to me that you might get lost. I had business in the city and I thought perhaps I might find you in the marketplace.”
“Thanks,” Kerwin said. “I wasn’t lost yet, but the streets are a little confusing. Good of you to come after me.” He was startled at the friendly gesture; Auster alone, of all the circle, had been persistently unfriendly.
Auster shrugged, and suddenly, as clearly as if Auster had spoken, Kerwin sensed it, clear patterned:
He’s lying. He said that so I wouldn’t ask his business down here. He didn’t come to meet me and he’s sore about it. But he shrugged the thought aside. What the hell, he wasn’t Auster’s keeper. Maybe the man had a girl down here, or a friend, or something. His affairs were none of Kerwin’s business.
But why did he think he had to explain to me why he was in the city?
They had fallen into step together, turning their steps back in the direction of the Tower, which lay like a long arm of shadow over the marketplace. Auster paused.