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“I did not know you could ride so well,” Andrew said.

“Oh, yes, even at Arilinn I rode a great deal. We spend so much time indoors, in the screens and the relays, that if we did not get out of doors for exercise, we would be as stiff and lifeless as the paintings of Hastur and Cassilda in the chapel! We used to take our hawks, on holidays, and ride out into the country around Arilinn—it is not hill country like this, but flat plain—and fly them at birds and small game. I was proud that I could handle a
 
verrin
 
hawk, a big bird, like this”—she spread her hands apart—“not a lady-bird as most of the women did.” She laughed again, a ringing sound. “Poor Andrew, I have been captive, and ill, and house-bound, so much that you must think me some delicate fairy-tale maiden, but I am a country girl, and very strong. When I was a child I could ride as well as my brother Coryn. Now I think my mare can beat your gelding to that fence yonder!” She clucked to the horse and was off like the wind. Andrew dug in his heels and raced after her, his heart in his mouth—she was not accustomed to riding now; she would be off in a moment—but woman and horse seemed to blend into a single creature. When she reached the fence, instead of pulling up her horse, she went flying over, with a laughing cry of excitement, the gray mare rising like a bird in the air and coming down lightly on the far side. As Andrew followed, she drew her horse to a walk and they moved along more slowly, side by side.

Perhaps this was what it was to be in love, Andrew thought. Every time he saw Callista it was like thefirst time, always all new and surprising. But that thought stirred the guilt which was never very far away. After a few minutes she noticed his silence, turned to him, reaching her small gloved hand to his. “What isit, my husband?”

“I had something to tell you, Callista,” he said abruptly. “Did you know Ellemir is pregnant again?”

Her face was suffused with her smile. “I am so glad for her! She has been so brave, but now she willhave an end to mourning and sorrow.”

“You don’t understand,” Andrew said doggedly. “She says it is my child—”

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“Oh, of course,” Callista said. “She told me Damon had not wanted her to try again so soon, for fear she

would… would lose it. I’m very glad, Andrew.”

Would he ever get used to their customs? He supposed it was lucky for him, but still… “Don’t youmind, Callista?”

She started to say—he almost
 
heard
 
the words—“Why should I mind?” but then he saw her suppressthem. He was still a stranger in some ways, in spite of everything. She said at last, slowly, “No, Andrew,

I truly don’t mind. I don’t suppose you do understand. But look at it this way.” She smiled again, hermirthful smile. “There will be a baby in the house, your child, and although I am fond enough of babies, Ido not really want to have one yet. In fact, and this is ridiculous, Andrew,” she added, laughing, “although

Ellemir and I are twins, I am not old enough to have a baby yet! Don’t you know that the midwives sayno woman should bear a child until her body has been mature a full three years? And for me it is not halfa year yet! Isn’t that funny? Elli and I are twins, and she is pregnant the second time, and I am not reallyold enough to have a baby!”

He flinched at the joke. How could she make jokes about the way in which her body had been held,immature, and yet, he realized soberly, it was her very ability to find something funny, even in this, whichhad saved them all from despair.

They reached the valley with the old stone bridge, where the twin foals had been born. Together theyrode up the long slope, tethered their horses to a tree, and dismounted.

“
 
Kireseth
is a flower of the heights,” Callista said. “It does not grow in the tilled valleys, and probably it is a good thing. Men sometimes even weed it out when it grows on the lower slopes, because the pollen causes trouble: when it blooms, even horses and cattle are likely to behave like mad things, stampede, attack one another, mate out of season. But it is very valuable, for we make the
 
kirian
 
from it. And look, it is beautiful,” she said, pointing to the long grassy slope, covered with a cascade of blue flowers, shimmering with their golden stamens. Some were still blue, others like bells of gold, covered with the golden pollen.

She tied a piece of thin cloth, like a mask, over the lower part of her face. “I am trained to handle itwithout reacting much,” she said, “but even so, I do not want to breathe too much of it.”

He watched while she made preparations to gather the flowers, but she warned him away. “Don’t cometoo close, Andrew. You have never been exposed to it before. Everyone who lives in the Kilghard Hillshas been through a Ghost Wind or two and knows how they will react, but it does very strange things. Stay here under the trees, with the horses.”

Andrew demurred, but she repeated her injunction firmly. “Do you think I need help picking a fewflowers, Andrew? I brought you with me to have your company on the long ride, and to soothe myfather’s fears about bandits or robbers lurking in the hills with intent to rob me of the jewels I am notwearing, or to attempt rape, which might,” she added, with a touch of grim laughter, “be worse for themto attempt than for me to suffer.”

Andrew turned his face away. He was glad Callista could find some amusement, but that particular jokestruck him as being in questionable taste.

“It will not take long for me to gather what I need of the flowers; they are already blooming and are

heavy with the resin. Wait here for me, my love.”

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He did as she said, watching her move away from him and into the flowers. She stooped and begancutting the flower heads, putting them into a thick bag she had brought. Andrew lay down on the grassbeside the horses and watched her moving lightly through the field of gold and blue flowers, her red-goldhair falling in a single braid down her back. The sun was warm, warmer than he could remember for anyday on Darkover. Bees and insects buzzed and whirred softly in the field of flowers, and a few birdsswooped down overhead. Around him, with sharpened senses, he could smell the horses and theirsaddle leather, the heavy scent of the resin-trees, and a sweet, sharp, fruity smell which, he supposed,must be the scent of the
 
kireseth
 
flowers. He could feel it filling his head. Remembering that Damon hadwarned him against handling or smelling even the dried flowers, he conscientiously moved the horses alittle further away. It was a still, windless day, with not the slightest breeze blowing. He drew off his ridingjacket and wadded it under his head. The sun made him drowsy. How graceful Callista was, as she bentover the flowers, cutting a blossom here and one there, stowing them in her bag. He closed his eyes, butbehind his eyelids it seemed he could still see sunlight, splintering into brilliant colors and prisms. He knewhe must have had a whiff of the resin; Damon had said it was an hallucinogen. But he felt relaxed andcontent, with no impulse to do any of the dangerous things he had been warned that men and animals didunder its influence. He was completely content to lie here on the warm grass, dimly conscious of theshifting rainbow colors behind his eyelids. When he opened his eyes, the sunlight seemed brighter,

warmer.

Then Callista was coming toward him, the mask fallen from her face, her hair flowing. She seemed towade, waist-deep, through shimmering golden waves of the star-shaped flowers, a delicate girlish womanin a cloud of bright copper hair. For a moment her form shimmered and wavered as if she were not thereat all, not his wife in a riding skirt, but the ghostly image he had seen while her body lay prisoner in thecaves of Corresanti and she could come to him only in insubstantial form in the overworld. But she wasreal. She sat beside him on the grass, bending her glowing face over him with a smile so tender that hecould not forbear to draw her down to him and kiss her lips. She returned his kiss with an intensity whichdimly surprised him… although, half asleep and his senses half sharpened, half dulled by the pollen, hecould not remember quite why this should surprise him so much.

He reached for her, drew her down beside him in the grass. He held her in his arms, kissing herpassionately, and she gave him back his kisses without hesitation or withdrawal.

A random thought crossed his mind, like a flicker of wind stirring the glowing flowers:
 
Did I ever dreamthat I had married the wrong woman
 
? This new, responsive Callista in his arms, glowing withtenderness, made the very thought absurd. He knew that she shared the thought—he no longer cared totry to conceal it from her, no longer cared to conceal
 
anything
 
from her—and that it amused her. Hecould feel the little glimmering ripples of laughter through the waves of desire which swept them both.

He knew, positively, that now he could do what he would and she would not protest, but compunctionstayed him from anything further than this, the kisses she shared and gave back so intensely. Whatevershe felt, it might be dangerous for her. That night… she had wanted him then too. And that had ended incatastrophe and near-tragedy. He would not risk it again until he was certain, more for her sake than his

own.

He knew she was beyond fear, but she accepted this, as she had accepted the kisses, the caresses. Strangely, there seemed no compulsion to go further, no ache of frustration. He was also swept withripples of laughter which seemed somehow to heighten the ecstatic quality of this moment, of sun andwarmth and flowers and singing insects in the grass all around him, a laughter, a mirth which shook Callista too, along with desire.

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His wife and he were perfectly content to lie here in the grass beside her, with his clothes on, and shehers, and do nothing more than kiss her, as if they were children in their teens… It was absurdly hilariousand delightful.

The politest of the Darkovan words for sex was
 
accandir
 
which meant simply to lie down together andwas so noncommittal that it could be used in the presence of young children. Well, he thought, againswept by the little ripples of mirth, that was what they were doing. He never knew how long they laythere side by side in the grass, kissing or gently caressing one another, while he played with the strands ofher hair or watched the soft prisms of color behind his eyes crawl across her glowing face.

It must have been hours later—the sun had begun to angle down from noon—when a cloud darkenedthe sun and a wind sprang up, blowing Callista’s hair across her face. Andrew blinked and sat up,looking down at her. She lay resting on one elbow, her under-tunic opened at the throat, bits of grass andflowers caught in her hair. It was suddenly cold, and Callista looked at the sky regretfully. “I am afraidwe must go, or we will be caught in the rain. Look at the clouds.” With reluctant fingers she fastened hertunic-laces, picked leaves from her hair, and braided it loosely. “Just enough for decency,” she sad,laughing. “I do not want to look as if I had been lying down in the fields, even with my own husband!”

He laughed, gathering up the bag of flowers at her side, laying it on the pommel of her saddle. Whathappened to them? he wondered. The sun, the pollen, what was it? He was ready to lift her on her horsewhen she delayed, suddenly catching at him, putting her arms around his neck.

She said, “Andrew, oh, please—” and glanced at the edge of the field, the shelter of the trees. He knewher thoughts; there was no need to put them into words.

“I want to… I want to be all yours.”

His hands tightened about her waist, but he did not move.

He said, very gently, “Darling, no. No risks.”

It seemed that it would be all right, but he was not sure. If the channels overloaded again… He could notbear to see her suffer that way. Not again.

She drew a long, deep breath of disappointment, but he knew she accepted his decision. When sheraised her eyes to him again they were filled with tears, but she was smiling.
 
I will cast no shadow onthis wonderful day by asking for more, like a greedy child
 
.

He put her riding cloak around her shoulders, for a sharp wind was blowing from the heights and it wascold. As he lifted her into the saddle he could see the field of flowers, now chill blue, without the goldenshimmer that had been on them. The sky was darkening into a drizzle of rain. He lifted Callista into hersaddle, and beyond her, as he mounted, could, see that on the other slope across the valley the horseswere beginning to bunch up, moving restlessly, looking for shelter also.

The ride back was silent, Andrew feeling let down, distressed. He felt that he had been a fool. He shouldhave taken advantage of Callista’s yielding, the sudden disappearance of fear or hesitation. What stupidcompunction had made him hesitate?

After all, if it was Callista’s response to him which overloaded the channels, there had already been asmuch of that as if he had actually taken her. As she had wished! What a fool he had been, he thought,what a damnable fool!

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Callista was silent, also, glancing now and then at him with an inexpressible look of guilt and dread. Hepicked up her fear, fear that came to wipe out the gladness.

I am glad I have known, again, what it was to desire him, to return his love… but I am afraid
. And he could feel the paralyzing texture of her fear, the memory of pain when she had allowed herself,before, to respond to him.
 
I couldn’t endure that again. Not even with
 
kirian
 
. And it would bedreadful for Damon too. Merciful Avarra, what have I done
?