Rruk, he said, and embraced her.

And in the embrace she startled the doorkeeper and the head of security by saying, Ansset. You've come home.

There was only one Ansset who could come home to the Songhouse. To the doorkeeper, Ansset was the child who had sung so beautifully at his leavetaking. To the head of security, who had never known him, Ansset was the emperor of the universe.

To Rruk, Ansset was a well-beloved friend that she had sorely missed and grieved for when he did not come home more than sixty years ago.

4

You've changed, Rruk said.

So have you.

Rruk compared herself now to the awkward child she had been. Not so much as you might think. Ansset, why didn't you tell them who you were?

Ansset leaned against a shuttered window in the High Room. I tell the doorkeeper who I am, and in ten minutes the entire Songhouse knows I'm here. You might let me visit, and then after a few days you would take me aside and say, 'You can't stay here.'

You can't.

But I have, Ansset said. For months. I'm not that old yet, but I feel like I'm living in my own childhood again. The children are beautiful. When I was their age and size, I didn't know it.

Neither did I.

And neither do they. They throw bread at each other when the cook isn't looking, you know. Terrible breach of Control.

Control can't be absolute in children. Or most children, anyway.

Rruk, I've been away so long. Let me stay.

She shook her head. I can't.

Why not? I can do what I've been doing. Have I caused any harm? Just think of me as another Blind. It's what I am, you know. A Songbird who came back and can't be used as a teacher.

Rruk listened to him and her outward calm masked more and more turbulence inside. He had done no harm in the months he had been in the Songhouse, and yet it was against custom,

I don't care much about custom, Ansset said, Nothing in my life has been particularly customary.

Esste decided--

Esste is dead, he said, and while his words were harsh, she wondered if she could not detect a note of tenderness In his voice. You're in the High Room now. Esste loved me, but compassion was not her style,

Esste heard you try to sing.

I can't sing. I don't sing.

But you do. Unwittingly, perhaps, but you do. Just speaking, the melodies of your voice are more eloquent than many of us can manage when we're trying to perform.

Ansset looked away.

You haven't heard your own songs, Ansset. You've been through too much in the last years. In your first years, for that matter. Your voice is full of the worlds outside. Full of too much remembered pain and heavy responsibility. Who could hear you and not be affected?

You're afraid I'd pollute the children?

And the teachers. And me.

Ansset thought for a moment, I've been silent so far. I can keep being silent. I'll be mute here in the Songhouse.

How long could you keep that up?

Aren't there retreats? Let me come and go as I like, let me wander around Tew when I feel the need to speak, and then come back home.

This isn't your home anymore.

And then Control slipped away from Ansset and his face and his voice pled with her. Rruk, this is my home. For sixty-five years this has been my home, though I was barred from ever returning. I tried to stay away. I ruled in that palace for too many years, I lived among people I loved, but Rruk, how long could you survive being cut off from this stone?

And Rruk remembered her own time as a singer, the years on Umusuwee where they loved her and treated her well, and she called her patrons Father and Mother; and yet when she turned fifteen she fairly flew all the way home because the jangle could be beautiful and sweet, but cold stone had formed everything inside her and she could not bear to be away from it longer than she must.

What do they put in these walls, Ansset, that makes them have such a hold on us?

Ansset looked at her questioningly.

Ansset, I can't decide fairly. I understand what you feel, I think I understand, but the Songmaster in the High Room can't act for pity.

Pity, he said, his Control again in force.

I have to act for the good of the Songhouse. And your presence here would introduce too many things that we couldn't control. The consequences might be felt for centuries.

Pity, Ansset said again. I misunderstood. I thought I was asking you to act for love.

It was Rruk's turn to be silent, watching him. Love. That's right, she thought, that's what we exist for here. Love and peace and beauty, that's what the Songhouse is for. And one of our best children, one of the finest-no, the finest Songbird the house has ever produced-asks for love and out of fear I can't give it to him.

It did not feel right to Rruk. Making Ansset leave did not sound right in her mind, no matter what logic might demand. And Rruk was not Esste; she was not governed by logic and good sense.

If it were right for the decision in this case to be a sensible one, there would be a sensible Songmaster in the High Room, she said to him. But I don't make my decisions that way. I don't feel good about letting you stay, but I feel much worse about making you go.

Thank you, he said softly.

Silence within these walls. No child is to hear your voice, not even a grunt; You serve here as a Deaf. And when you can't bear the silence anymore, you may leave and go where you like. Take what money you need-you could spend forever and not use up what the Songhouse was paid for your services when you went to Earth.

And I can come back?

As often as you still want to. Provided you keep your silence here. And you'll forgive me if I forbid the Blinds and Deafs to tell any of the singers who you are.

He cast aside Control and smiled at her, and embraced her, and then sang to her:

I wil never hurt you.

I will always help you,

If you are hungry

I'll give you my food.

If you are frightened

I am your friend.

I love you now

And love does not end,

The song broke Rruk's heart, just for a moment. Because it was terrible. The voice was not even as good as that of a child. It was the voice of an old man who had talked too much and sung not at all for too many years. It was not controlled, it was not shaped, the melody was not even perfectly true. What he has lost! she cried out inside herself. Is this all that's left?

And yet the power was still there. The power had not been given to Ansset by the Songhouse, it had been born in him and magnified in him by his own suffering, and so when he sang the love song to her, it touched her deeply. She remembered her own weak voice singing those words to him what seemed a million years before, and yesterday.

She remembered his loyalty to her when he had not needed to be loyal. And her last misgivings about letting him stay disappeared.

You may talk to me, she said. To none of the others, but you cannot be a mute to me.

I'll pollute your voice as surely as the others.

She shook her head. Nothing that comes from you can do any harm to me. When I hear your voice I'll remember Ansset's Farewell. There are still quite a few of us who remember, you know. It keeps us humble, because we know what a voice can do. And it will keep me clean.

Thank you, he said again, and then left her, going down the stairs into the parts of the Songhouse where he had just promised that his voice would never be heard again.

5

After a few days' hiatus, the old man returned again to Rainbow Kitchen. The children were excited. They had been afraid this man of mystery would be gone forever. They watched carefully for some clue as to the reason for his disappearance. But he behaved as if nothing unusual had happened. And helped the cook afterward just as he had before.