The Apogian War

Chapter 38

It was I who asked my granddaughter to present the girl to you." He turned to the buffet. "Have you had sup per? The fruits are exceptional this season. We have ice-melons from Evertin; they're not usually obtainable in the market." "Thank you but I'm not hungry," I said. "Is it permitted to ask why you take such an interest in my marriage, my lord? Or am I to feel flat tered that you interest yourself, without asking why?" "I take it the girl was not to your liking, then." "What could I possibly have against her? But forgive me, sir, I have a certain distaste for airing my personal affairs before half the city of Vandart." I moved my hand to indicate the dancing crowds. He smiled genially. "Do you really think anyone here is intent on anything but his own affairs?" He was calmly filling a plate for himself with assorted delica cies. Sullenly, I followed suit. He moved toward a couple of reasonably isolated chairs and said, "We can sit here and talk, if you like. What's the matter, lno? You're just about the proper age to be married." "Just like that," I said, "and I'm not to be consulted?" "I thought we were consulting you," Darkov said, taking a forkful of some kind of shredded seafood mixed with greens. "We did not, after all, summon you to the chapel at a few hours' notice, to be married on the spot, as was done only a few years ago. I was given no chance even

to see my dear wife's face locked on our wrists, yet we lived together in harmony for forty years," until a few minutes before the bracelets were My father, speaking of his first years on persia and being plunged abruptly into their alien customs, had once used a phrase for the way I felt now: culture shock. "With all deference, Lord Hastur, times have changed too much for that to be a suitable way of making marriages. Why is there such a hurry?" Darkov's face suddenly hardened. "Lno, do you really understand that if your father had broken his neck on those damnable stairs, in stead of a few ribs and his collarbone, you would now be Lord Faltron of Armiday, with all that implies? My own son never lived to see his son. With our world in the shape it's in, none of us can afford to take chances with the heirship of a Domain. What is your specific objection to marriage? Are you a lover of men?" He used the very polite casta phrase and I, used to the much coarser one customary in the Guards, was not for a moment quite certain what he meant. Then I grinned without amusement. "That arrow went wide of the mark, my lord. Even as a boy I had small taste for such games. I may be young, but that young I am not." "Then what can it possibly be?" He seemed honestly bewildered. "Is it Linnell you wish to marry? We had other marriage-plans for her, but if both of you really wish-" I said in honest outrage, "Evanda protect us both! Lord Darkov, Lin nell is my sister!" "Not blood-kin," he said, "or not so close as to be a grave risk to your children. It might be a suitable match after all." I took a spoonful of the food on my plate. It tasted revolting and I swallowed and set the plate down. "Sir, I love Linnell dearly. We were children together. If it were only to share my life, I could think of no happier person to spend it with. But," I fumbled to explain, a little em barrassed, "after you've slapped a girl for breaking your toys, taken her into bed with you when she had a nightmare or was crying with a toothache, pinned up her skirts so she could wade in a brook, or dressed her, or brushed her hair-it's almost impossible to think of her as a-a bedmate, Lord Darkov. Forgive this plain speaking." He waved that away. "No, no. No formalities. I asked you to be hon est with me. I can understand that. We married your father very young to a woman the Council thought suitable, and I have been told they lived together in complete harmony and total indifference for many years. But I don't want to wait until you've fixed your desire on some Hauitable, either. Your father married at the last to please

to lighten that burden for you others who bear the heavier ones. So far at I know, you have never misused your power. Nor are you one of those frivolous young people who want to enjoy the privilege of rank and spend your life in amusements and folly. Why, then, do you shrink from doing this duty to your clan?" I suddenly wished that I could unburden my fears and misgivings to him. I could not doubt the old man's personal integrity. Yet he was so completely entangled in his single-minded plan for political aims on Vandartha that I distrusted him, too. I would not let him manipulate me to serve those aims. I felt confused, half convinced, half more defiant than ever. He was waiting for my answer; I shrank from giving it. Mind gaps get used to facing things head-on-you have to, in order to stay even reasonably sane-but you don't learn to put things easily into words. You get used, in a place like Aril, to knowing that everyone in your circle can share all your feelings and emotions and desires. There is no reticence there, none of the small evasions and courtesies which outsiders use in speaking of intimate things. But Darkov could not read my thoughts, and I fumbled at putting it into words that would not embarrass either of us too much. "Mostly I have never met a woman I wished to spend my life with ... and, being a mind gap, I am not willing to... to gamble on some one else's choice." No. I wasn't being completely honest. I would have gambled on Linnea willingly, if I had not felt I was being manipulated, used as a helpless pawn. My anger flared again. "Darkov, if you wanted me to marry simply for the sake of perpetuating my gift, of fathering a son for the Domain, you should have had me married off before I was full-grown, before I was old enough to have any feelings about any woman, and would have wanted her just because she was a woman and available. Now it's different." I fell silent again. How could I tell Darkov, who was old enough to be my grandfather, and not even a Mind gap, that when I took a woman, all her thoughts and feelings were open to me and mine to her, that unless rapport was complete and sympathy almost total, it could quickly unman me? Few women could endure it. And how could I tell him about the paralyzing failures which a lack of sympathy could bring? Did he actually think I could manage to live with a woman whose only interest in me was that I might give her a Chosen son? I know some men in the Dover manage it. I suppose that almost any two people with healthy bodies can give each other something in bed. But not tower-trained mind gaps, accus tomed to that full sharing.... I said, and I knew my voice was shaking uncontrollably, "Even a god cannot be constrained to love on com mand. Darkov looked at me with sympathy. That hurt, too. It would have been hard enough to strip myself this way before a man my own age, Finally be said gently. "There's never been any question of compulsion, Lno. But promise me to think about it. The Storn-Lanart girl has ap plied to Darwin's Tower. We need Keepers and pai technicians. But we also need sensitive women, mind gaps , to marry into our families. If you could come to like one another, we would welcome her." I said, drawing a deep breath, "111 think about it." Linnea was a mind gap. It might be enough. But to put it bluntly, I was afraid. Darkov gestured to a servant to take his emptied plate and my nearly un touched one. "More wine?" more than I usually do in a Thank you, sir, but I have already drum week. And I promised my foster sister another dance." Kind as he had been, I was glad to get away from him. The conver sation had rubbed me raw-edged, rousing thoughts I had learned to keep firmly below the surface of my mind. Love-to put it more precisely, s*x-is never easy for a mind gap. Not even when you're very young and still childishly playing around, dis covering your own needs and desires, learning to know your own body and its hungers. I suppose, from the way other lads talk-and there's plenty of talk in the cadets and the Guards-for most people, at least for a time, anyone of the right s*x who is accessible and not completely repulsive will do. But even during those early experiments I had always been too con scious of the other party's motives and reactions, and they would rarely stand up to so close an examination. And after I went to Aril and submerged myself in the intense sharing and closeness there, it had changed from merely difficult to impossible. Well, I had promised Linnell a dance. And what I had told Darkov was true. Linnell was not a woman to me and she would not disturb me emotionally at all. But Callina was alone, watching a group of classic dancers do a rhythmic dance which mimicked the leaves in a spring storm. Their draperies, gray-green, yellow-green, blue-green, flickered and flowed in the lights like sunshine. Callina had thrown back her hood and, preoc cupied in watching the dancers, looked rather forlorn, very small and fragile and solemn. I came and stood beside her. After a moment she turned and said,

"You promised Linnell to dance again, didn't you? Well, you can save yourself the trouble, cousin, she and the Storm

Lanart child are in the balcony, watching and chattering to one another about gowns and hair-dressing." She smiled, a small whimsical smile which momentarily lightened her pale stern face. "It's foolish to bring Bittle girls that age to a formal ball, they'd be just as happy at a dancing I said, letting out my pent-up bitterness, "Oh, they're old enough to dass!" be up for auction to the highest bidder. It's how we make fine mar nages in the Dover. Are you for sale too, damisela?" She smiled faintly. "I don't imagine you're making an offer? No, I'm not for sale this year at least. I'm Keeper at Darwin Tower, and you know what that means." I knew, of course. The Keepers are no longer required to be cloistered virgins to whom no man dares raise even a careless glance. But while they are working at the center of the energon relays, they are required by harsh necessity, to remain strictly chaste. They learned not to attrac desires they dared not satisfy. Probably they learned not to feel them either, which is a good trick if you can manage it. I wished I could. I relaxed.

Against Callina, tower-trained and a working Keeper, I need not be on my guard. We shared a deeper kinship than blood, the strong tie of the tower-trained mind gap. I've been a patrix technician long enough to know that the work uses up so much physical and nervous energy that there's not much left over for s*x. The will may be there, but not the energy. The Keepers are required, for their physical and emotional safety, to remain celibate. The others in the circle-technicians, mechanics, psi monitors-are usu ally generous and sensitive about satisfying what little remains. In any case you get too close for playing the elaborate games of flirt and retreat that men and women elsewhere are given to playing. And Callina un derstood all this without being told, having been part of it. She was also sensitive enough to be aware of my mood. She said, with a faint tinge of gentle malice, "I have heard Linnea will be sent to Aril next year, if you both choose not to marry. You'll have time for second thoughts. Shall I ask them to be sure she is not made Keeper, in case you should change your mind?" I felt somewhat abashed. That was an outrageous thing to say! But what would have infuriated me from an outsider did not trouble me from her. Within a tower circle such a statement would not have em barrassed me, although I would not have felt constrained to answer, ei ther. She was port of the tower circles, we were all very much aware of each other's simply treating me like one of our own kind. in the rapport of the tower circles, we were very much aware of each other's