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Her anger was suddenly gone. “Dear brother”—
 
bredu
was the word she used—“I know it is Callistayou love. But it was I in your dream.”

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“A physical reflex,” he said brutally.

“Well, that’s real too. And it would mean, at least, that you need no longer torment Callista for what she

cannot give you.” She reached to refill his glass. He stopped her.

“No more. I’m already half drunk. Damn it, does it matter whether I torment her that way, or by going

off and falling into bed with someone else?”

“I don’t understand.” He felt that Ellemir’s confusion was genuine. “Do you mean that a woman of your people, if she could not for some reason share her husband’s bed, would be angry if he found… comfort elsewhere? How strange and how cruel!”

“I guess most women think that if they… if they have to asbtain for some reason, it’s only fair for the man to share the… the abstention.” He fumbled. “Look, if Callista’s unhappy too, and I go off to get myself laid—oh, hell, I don’t know the polite words—isn’t it pretty rotten of me to act as if
her
 
unhappiness doesn’t matter, as long as my own needs are met?”

Ellemir laid a gentle hand on his arm. “That does you credit, Andrew. But I find it hard to imagine that awoman who loved a man wouldn’t be glad to know he was satisfied somehow.”

“But wouldn’t she feel as if I didn’t love her enough to wait for her?”

“Do you think you would love Callista less if you were to lie with me?”

He returned her gaze steadily. “Nothing in this world could make me love Callista less.
 
Nothing
 
.”

She shrugged slightly. “So how could she be hurt? And think about this, Andrew. Suppose that someoneother than yourself could help Callista break the bonds she did not seek and cannot break. Would yoube angry with her, or love her less?”

Touched on the raw, Andrew remembered the moment when it seemed that Damon had come betweenthem, his almost frantic jealousy. “Do you expect me to believe a man wouldn’t mind that, here?”

“You told me only now that nothing could make you love her less. Would you forbid her, then?”

“Forbid her? No,” Andrew said, “but I might wonder how deep
 
her
 
love went.”

Ellemir’s voice was suddenly shaking. “Are you Terrans like the Dry-Towners, then, who keep theirwomen behind walls and in chains so that no other man will touch them? Is she a toy you want to lock ina box so that no one else can play with it? What
 
is
 
marriage to you, then?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said drearily, his anger collapsing. “I’ve never been married before. I’m not trying to quarrel with you, Elli.” He fumbled with the pet name. “I… just… well, we were talking, before, about things being strange to me, and this is one of them. To believe Callista wouldn’t be hurt…”

“If you had abandoned her, or if you had forced her to consent, unwilling—as with
 
Dom
 
Ruyven of Castamir, who forced Lady Crystal to harbor his
 
barragana
 
wife and to foster all the bastards the woman bore—then, yes, she might have cause to grieve. But can you believe it is cruelty, that you do her will?” She met his eyes, reached out, gently, and took his hand between her own. She said, “If you are suffering, Andrew, it hurts all of us. Callista too. And… and me, Andrew.”

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His barriers were down. The touch, the meeting of their eyes, made him feel wholly exposed to her. Nowonder she had no hesitation in simply walking around without her shift, he realized. This was the realnakedness.

He had reached that particular stage of drunkenness where preconceptions blur and people dooutrageous things and believe them commonplace. He could see Ellemir, now as herself, now as Callista,now as a visible sign of a contact he was only beginning to understand, the fourway link between them. She bent and laid her mouth against his. It went through his body like a jolt of electricity. All his achingfrustration was behind the strength with which he pulled her into his arms.

Is this happening, or am I drunk, and dreaming about it again
? Thought blurred. He was aware of Ellemir’s body in his arms, slender, naked, confident, with that curious matter-of-fact acceptance. In amoment’s completely sober insight, he knew that this was her way of cutting off awareness of Damontoo. It was not only his need, but hers. He was glad of that.

He was naked, with no memory of shedding his clothes. She was warm, pliant in his arms.
 
Yes, she hasbeen here before, for a moment, the four of us, blended, just before catastrophe struck
 
,… At theback of her mind he sensed a warm, welcoming amusement:
 
No, you are not strange to me
 
.

Through growing excitement came a sad strange thought:
 
It should have been Callista
 
, Ellemir felt sodifferent in his arms, so
 
solid
 
somehow, without any of the shy fragility which so excited him in Callista. Then he felt her touch, rousing him, blotting out thought. He felt memory blurring and wondered for amoment if this were her doing, so that for now the kindly haze obscured everything. He was only afeeling, reacting body, driven by long need and deprivation, aware only of an accepting, responding bodyin his arms, of excitement and tenderness matching his own, seeking the deliverance so long denied. When it came it was so intense that he thought he would lose consciousness.

After a time he stirred, carefully shifting his weight. She smiled and brushed her hair from his face. He feltcalm, released, grateful. No, it was more than gratitude, it was a closeness, like… yes, like the momentthey had met in the matrix. He said, quietly, “Ellemir.” Just a reaffirmation, a reassurance. For the momentshe was clearly herself, not Callista, not anyone else. She kissed him lightly on the temple, and suddenlyexhaustion and release of long denial all fell together at once, and he slept in Ellemir’s arms. Anindefinable time later he woke to see Damon looking down at them.

He looked weary, haggard, and Andrew thought, in shock, that here was the best friend he had everhad, and here he was, in bed with his wife.

Ellemir sat up quickly. “Callista—?”

Damon’s sigh seemed dragged up from the roots of his body. “She’s going to be all right. She’s asleep.”

He stumbled and almost fell on top of them. Ellemir held out her arms, gathering him to her breast.

Andrew thought he was in the way there, then, sensing Damon’s exhaustion, how near the older manwas to collapse, realized that his preoccupation with himself was selfish, irrelevant. Clumsily, wishingthere was some way to express what he felt, he put his arm around Damon’s shoulders.

Damon sighed again, and said, “She’s better than I dared hope for. She’s very weak, of course, andexhausted. After all I put her through…” he shuddered, and Ellemir drew his head to her breasts.

“Was it so terrible, beloved?”

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“Terrible, yes, terrible for
 
her
 
,” Damon muttered, and even then—Ellemir sensed it with heartbreak—he was trying to shield her, shield them both from the nakedness of his own memory. “She was so brave, and I wouldn’t bear having to hurt her like that.” His voice broke. He hid his face on Ellemir’s breasts and began to sob, harshly, helplessly.

Andrew thought he should leave, but Damon reached out for Andrew’s hand, clinging to it with anagonized grip. Andrew, putting aside his own discomfort at being present at such a moment, thought thatright now Damon needed all the comfort he could get. He only said very softly, when Damon hadquieted, “Should I be with Callista?”

Damon caught the overtone in the words:
 
You and Ellemir would rather be alone
 
. In his worn,raw-edged state it was painful, a rebuff. His words were sharp with exhaustion.

“She won’t know whether you’re there or not. But do as you damn please!” and the unspoken part of

his words were as plain as what he said aloud:
 
If you just can’t wait to get away from us
 
.

He still doesn’t understand
…

Damon, how could he
? Ellemir hardly understood herself. She only knew that when Damon was likethis it was painful, exhausting. His need was so much greater than she could meet or comfort in any way. Her own inadequacy tormented her. It was not sexual—
 
that
she could have understood and eased—butwhat she sensed in Damon left her exhausted and helpless because it was not any recognizable needwhich she could understand. Some of her desperation came through to Andrew, though all she said was, “Please stay. I think he wants us both with him now.”

Damon, clinging to them both with a desperate, sinking need for physical contact which was not, thoughit simulated, the real need he felt, thought,
 
No, they don’t understand
 
. And, more rationally,
 
I don’tunderstand it either
 
. For the moment it was enough that they were there. It wasn’t complete, it wasn’twhat he needed, but for the moment he could make it do, and Ellemir, holding him close in despair,thought that they could calm him a little, like this. But what was it he really needed? Would she everknow? She wondered. How could she know when he didn’t know himself?

Chapter Twelve

«^»

Callista woke and lay with her eyes closed, feeling the sun on her eyelids. In the night, through her sleep,she had felt the storm cease, the snow stop, and the clouds disappear. This morning the sun was out. Shestretched her body, savoring the luxury of being wholly without pain. She still felt weak, drained, though itnow seemed to her that she had slept for two or three whole days without intermission, after that dreadfulordeal. Afterward she had remained abed for a few days, recovering her strength, although she felt quitewell. She knew that the first thing necessary was to recover her health, which, always before, had beenexcellent, and it would take time.

And when she was well, what then? But she caught herself. If she began to fret about that, she wouldhave no peace.

She was alone in the room. That was luxury too. She had spent so many years alone that she had cometo crave solitude as much as she had once dreaded it during the difficult years of her training. And while

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she was sick she had never been alone for an instant. She knew the reason—she would unhesitatingly have ordered the same treatment for anyone in her condition—and she had welcomed their care and unceasing love. Now, however, it was good to wake again and know herself once more left alone.

She opened her eyes and sat up in bed. Andrew’s bed was empty. Dimly she remembered, through hersleep, hearing him moving around, dressing, going out. With the storm over, there would be all manner ofthings to be attended to around the estate. Around the house too. Ellemir had spent so much time at herside during the days of her illness that she had neglected the running of the household.

Callista decided that she would go downstairs this morning.

Last night Andrew had been with Ellemir again. She had sensed it dimly, by the old discipline turning hermind away from it. He had come in softly, near midnight, moving quietly so as not to disturb her, and shehad pretended sleep.

I am a fool and unkind
, she told herself.
 
I wanted this to happen, and I am honestly glad, yet Icould not speak to him and say so
 
. But that line of thought led nowhere, either. There was only onething she could do, and she must summon up the strength to do it: to live every day as best she could,recovering her health, trusting Damon’s promise. Andrew still loved and wanted her, though, she thoughtwith a detachment so clinical she did not even know it was bitter, she could not imagine why he should. Again, why dwell on the one thing they could not yet share? Resolutely she got out of bed and went tobathe.

She dressed herself in a blue woolen skirt and a white knitted tunic with a long collar which could bewound about her like a shawl. For the first time since she could remember she actually felt hungry. Downstairs, the maids had cleared away the morning meal. Her father’s chair had been rolled to thewindow and he was looking out into the heavily drifted courtyard, where a group of serving men, heavilybundled, were clearing away some of the snow. She went and brushed his forehead with a dutiful kiss.