“Did you compromise the girl? Is that the reason for this sudden marriage?”

The cup froze in his hand. He looked at her, and all at once he knew she had meant it just as he had heard it, and flushed with heat, not the telise.

“I am in love with her.”

Djan’s cool eyes rested on him, estimating. “The nemet are a beautiful people. They have a certain attraction. And I suppose nemet women have a certain—flattering appeal to a man of our kind. They always let their men be right.”

“It will not trouble you,” he said.

“I am sure it will not.” She let the implied threat hang in the air a moment and then shrugged lightly. “I have nothing personal against the child. I don’t expect I’ll ever have to consider the problem. I trust your good sense for that. Marry her. Occasionally you will find, as I do, that nemet thoughts and looks and manners—and nemet prejudices—are too much for you. That fact moved me, I admit it, or you would be keeping company with the Tamurlin—or the fishes. I had rather think we were companions,—human and reasonably civilized. This person Mim, she is only chan;she does at least provide a certain respectability if you are careful. I suppose it is not such a bad choice, so I do not think this marriage will be such an inconvenience to me. And I think you understand me, Kurt.”

The cup shook in his hand. He put it aside, lest his fingers crush the fragile crystal.

“You are gambling your neck, Djan. I won’t be pushed.”

“I do not push,” she said, “more than will make me understood. And I think we understand each other plainly.”

7

The gray light of dawn was over Nephane, spreading through a mist that overlay all but the upper walls of the Afen. The cobbled street running down from the Afen gate was wet, and the few people who had business on the streets at that hour went muffled in cloaks.

Kurt stepped up to the front door of Elas, tried the handle in the quickly dashed hope that it would be unlocked, then knocked softly, not wanting to wake the whole house.

More quickly than he had expected, soft footsteps approached the door inside, hesitated. He stood squarely before the door to be surveyed from the peephole.

The bar flew back, the door was snatched inward, and Mim was there in her nightrobe. With a sob of relief she flung herself into his arms and hugged him tightly.

“Hush,” he said, “it’s all right; it’s all right, Mim.”

They were framed in the doorway. He brought her inside and closed and barred the heavy door. Mim stood wiping at her eyes with her wide sleeve.

“Is the house awake?” he whispered.

“Everyone finally went to bed. I came out again and waited in the rhmei.I hoped—I hoped you would come back. Are you all right, my lord?”

“I am well enough.” He took her in his arm and walked with her to the warmth of the rhmei.There in the light her large eyes stared up at him and her hands pressed his, gentle as the touch of wind.

“You are shaking,” she said. “Is it the cold?”

“It’s cold and I’m tired.” It was hard to slip back into Nechai after hours of human language. His accent crept out again.

“What did she want?”

“She asked me some questions. They held me all night—Mim, I just want to go upstairs and get some sleep. Don’t worry. I am well, Mim.”

“My lord,” she said in a tear-choked voice, “before the phusmehait is a great wrong to lie. Forgive me, but I know that you are lying.”

“Leave me alone, Mim, please.”

“It was not about the questions. If it was, look at me plainly and say that it was so.”

He tried, and could not. Mim’s dark eyes flooded with sadness.

“I am sorry,” was all that he could say.

Her hands tightened on his. That terrible dark-eyed look would not let him go. “Do you wish to break the contract, or do you wish to keep it?”

“Do you?”

“If it is your wish.”

With his chilled hand he smoothed the hair from her cheek and wiped at a streak of tears. “I do not love her,” he said; and then, tribute to the honesty Mim herself used: “But I know how she feels, Mim. Sometimes I feel that way too. Sometimes all Elas is strange to me and I want to be human just for a little time. It is like that with her.”

“She might give you children and you would be lord over all Nephane.”

He crushed her against him, the faint perfume of aluelleaves about her clothing, a freshness about her skin, and remembered the synthetics-and-alcohol scent of Djan, human and, for the moment, pleasing. There was kindness in Djan; it made her dangerous, for it threatened her pride.

It threatened Elas.

“If it were in Djan’s nature to marry, which it is not, I would still feel no differently, Mim. But I cannot say that this will be the last time I go to the Afen. If you cannot bear that, then tell me so now.”

“I would be concubine and not first wife, if it was your wish.”

“No,” he said, realizing how she had heard it. “No, the only reason I would ever put you aside would be to protect you.”

She leaned up on tiptoe and took his face between her two silken hands, kissed him with great tenderness. Then she drew back, hands still uplifted, as if unsure how he would react. She looked frightened.

“My lord husband,” she said, which she was entitled to call him, being betrothed. The words had a strange sound between them. And she took liberties with him which he understood no honorable nemet lady would take with her betrothed, even in being alone with him. But she put all her manners aside to please him,—perhaps, he feared, to fight for him in her own desperate fashion.

He pressed her to him tightly and set her back again. “Mim, please. Go before someone wakes and sees you. I have to talk to Kta.”

“Will you tell him what has happened?”

“I intend to.”

“Please do not bring violence into this house.”

“Go on, Mim.”

She gave him an agonized look, but she did as he asked her.

He did not knock at Kta’s door. There had already been too much noise in the sleeping house. Instead he opened it and slipped inside, crossed the floor and parted the curtain that screened the sleeping area before he spoke Kta’s name.

The nemet came awake with a start and an oath, looked at Kurt with dazed eyes, then rolled out of bed and wrapped a kilt around himself. “Gods,” he said, “you look deathly, friend. What happened? Are you all right? Is there some—?”

“I’ve just been put to explaining a situation to Mim,” Kurt said, and found his limbs shaking under him, the delayed reaction to all that he had been through. “Kta, I need advice.”

Kta showed him a chair. “Sit down, my friend. Compose your heart and I will help you if you can make me understand. Shall I find you something to drink?”

Kurt sat down and bowed his head, locked his fingers behind his neck until he made himself remember the calm that belonged in Elas. The scent of incense, the dim light of the phusa,the sense of stillness, all this comforted him, and the panic left him though the fear did not.

“I am all right,” he said. “No, do not bother about the drink.”

“You only now came in?” Kta asked him, for the morning showed through the window.

Kurt nodded, looked him in the eyes, and Kta let the breath hiss slowly between his teeth.

“A personal matter?” Kta asked with admirable delicacy.

“The whole of Elas seemed to have read matters better than I did when I went up to the Afen. Was it that obvious? Does the whole of Nephane know by now, or is there any privacy in this city?”

“Mim knew, at least. Kurt, Kurt, light of heaven, there was no need to guess. When the Methi’s men came back to assure us of your safety, it was clear enough, coupled with the Methi’s reaction to the betrothal. My friend, do not be ashamed. We always knew that your life would be bound to that of the Methi. Nephane has taken it for granted from the day you came. It was the betrothal to Mim that shocked everyone—I am speaking plainly. I think the truth has its moment, even if it is bitter. Yes, the whole of Nephane knows, and is by no means surprised.”