Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Forbidden Circle 2

The Forbidden Tower

Marion Zimmer Bradley

THE FORBIDDEN CIRCLE 02

A DARKOVER NOVEL

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Epilogue

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER

1301 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N. Y. 10019

Cover art by Richard Hescox.

FIRST PRINTING, SEPTEMBER 1977

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

DEDICATION

For DIANA PAXSON, who asked the question which directly

touched off this book;

and

for THEODORE STURGEON, who first explored the questions

which, directly or indirectly, underlie almost everything I have written.

Chapter One

Damon Ridenow rode through a land cleansed.

For most of the year, the great plateau of the Kilghard Hills had lain under the evil influence of the

catmen. Crops withered in the fields, under the unnatural darkness which blotted out the light of the sun;

the poor folk of the district huddled in their homes, afraid to venture into the blasted countryside.

But now men worked again in the light of the great red sun of Darkover, garnering their harvests

against the coming snows. It was early autumn, and the harvests were mostly in.

The Great Cat had been slain in the caves of Corresanti and the giant illegal matrix which he had

found and put to such frightful use had been destroyed with his death. Such catmen as still lived had fled

into the far rain forests beyond the mountains, or fallen to the swords of the Guardsmen that Damon had

led against them.

The land was clean again and free of terror, and Damon, most of his army dismissed to their homes,

rode homeward. Not to his ancestral estates of Serrais; Damon was an unregarded younger son and had

never felt Serrais his home. He rode now to Armida, to his wedding.

He sat his horse now at the side of the road, watching the last few men separate themselves

according to their way. There were uniformed Guardsmen bound for Thendara, in their green and black

uniforms; there were a few men bound northward to the Hellers, from the Domains of Ardais and

Hastur; and a few riding south to the plains of Valeron.

“You should speak to the men, Lord Damon,” said a short, gnarled-looking man at Damon’s side.

“I’m not very good at making speeches.” Damon was a slight, slender man with a scholar’s face.

Until this campaign he had never thought himself a soldier and was still surprised at himself, that he had

led these men successfully against the remnants of the catmen.

“They expect it, lord,” Eduin urged, and Damon sighed, knowing what the other man said was true.

Damon was Comyn of the Domains; not Lord of a Domain, or even a Comyn heir, but still Comyn, of

the old telepathic, psi-gifted caste which had ruled the Seven Domains from time unknown. The days

were gone when Comyn were treated as living gods, but there was still the respect, near to awe. And

Damon had been trained to the responsibilities of a Comyn son. Sighing, he urged his horse to a spot

where the waiting men could see him.

“Our work is done. Thanks to you men who have answered my call, there is peace in the Kilghard

Hills and in our homes. It only remains for me to give you my thanks and farewell.”

The young officer who had brought the Guardsmen from Thendara rode toward Damon, as the

other men rode away. “Will Lord Alton ride to Thendara with us? Shall we await him?”

“You would have long to wait,” Damon said. “He was wounded in the first battle with the catmen, a

small wound, but the spine was injured past healing. He is paralyzed from the waist down. I think he will

never ride anywhere again.”

The young officer looked troubled. “Who will now command the Guardsmen, Lord Damon?”

It was a reasonable question. For generations the command of the Guardsmen had lain in the hands

of the Alton Domain; Esteban Lanart of Armida, Lord Alton, had commanded for many years. ButDom

Esteban’s oldest surviving son, Lord Domenic, was a youth of seventeen. Though a man by the laws of

the Domains, he had neither the age nor the authority for command. The other remaining Alton son,

young Valdir, was a boy of eleven, a novice at Nevarsin Monastery, being schooled by the brothers of

St.-Valentine-of-the-Snows.

Who would command the Guards, then? It was a very reasonable question, thought Damon, but he

did not know the answer. He said so, adding, “It will be for Comyn Council to decide next summer,

when Council meets in Thendara.” There had never been war in winter on Darkover; there never would

be. In winter there was a fiercer enemy, the cruel cold, the blizzards which swept down across the

Domains from the Hellers, No army could move against the Domains in winter. Even bandits were kept

close to their own homes. They could wait for the next Council season to name a new commander.

Damon changed the subject.

“Will you reach Thendara by nightfall?”

“Unless something should delay us by the way.”

“Then don’t let me delay you further,” Damon said, and bowed. “The command of these men is

yours, kinsman.”

The young officer could not conceal a smile. He was very young, and this was his first command,

brief and temporary as it was. Damon watched with a thoughtful smile as the boy mustered his men and

rode away. The boy was a born officer, and withDom Esteban disabled, competent officers could

expect promotions.

Damon himself, though in command of this mission, had never thought of himself as a soldier. Like

all Comyn sons he had served in the cadet corps, and had taken his turn as an officer, but his talents and

ambitions had been far otherwise. At seventeen he had been admitted to the Arilinn Tower as a telepath,

to be trained in the old matrix sciences of Darkover. For many, many years he had worked there,

growing in strength and skill, reaching the rank of psi technician.

Then he had been sent from the Tower. No fault of his own, his Keeper had assured him, only that

he was too sensitive, that his health, even his sanity might be destroyed under the tremendous stresses of

matrix work.

Rebellious but obedient, Damon had gone. The word of a Keeper was law, never to be questioned

or resisted. His life smashed, his ambitions in ruins, he had tried to build himself a new life in the

Guardsmen, though he was no soldier, and knew it. He had been cadet master for a time, then hospital

officer, supply officer. And on this last campaign against the catmen he had learned to bear himself with

confidence. But he had no desire to command, was glad to relinquish it now.

He watched the men ride away until their forms were lost in the dust of the roadway. Now for

Annida and home…

“Lord Damon,” Eduin said at his side, “there are riders on the road.”

“Travelers? At this season?” It seemed impossible. The winter snows had not yet begun, but any

day the first of the winter storms would sweep down from the Hellers, blocking the roads for days at a

time. There was an old saying, Only the mad or the desperate travel in winter. Damon strained his eyes

to make out the distant riders, but he had been somewhat shortsighted since childhood, and could make

out only a blur.

“Your eyes are better than mine. Are they armed men, do you think, Eduin?”

“I do not think so, Lord Damon; there is a lady riding with them.”

“At this season? That seems unlikely,” Damon said. What could bring a woman out into the

uncertain traveling of the approaching winter?

“It is a Hastur banner, Lord Damon. Yet Lord Hastur and his lady would not leave Thendara at this

season. If for some reason they rode to Castle Hastur, they would not be on this road. I cannot

understand it.”

Yet even before he finished, Damon knew the identity of the woman who rode with the little party

of Guardsmen and escorts toward him. Only one woman on Darkover would ride alone beneath a

Hastur banner, and only one Hastur would have reason to ride this way.

“It is the Lady of Arilinn,” he said at last, reluctantly, and saw Eduin’s face light up with wonder and

awe.

Leonie Hastur. Leonie of Arilinn, Keeper of the Arilinn Tower. Damon knew that in courtesy he

should ride to meet his kinswoman, to welcome her, yet he sat his horse as if frozen, fighting for

self-mastery. Time seemed annihilated. In a frozen, timeless, echoing chamber of his mind, a younger

Damon stood trembling before the Keeper of Arilinn, head bowed to hear the words which shattered his

life:

“It is not that you have failed us or displeased me. But you are all too sensitive for this work, too

vulnerable. Had you been born a woman, you would have been a Keeper. But as things stand now… I

have watched you for years. This work will destroy your health, destroy your reason. You must leave

us, Damon, for your own sake.”

Damon had gone without protest, for there was guilt in him. He had loved Leonie, loved her with all

the despairing passion of a lonely man, but loved her chastely, without a word or a touch. For Leonie,

like all Keepers, was a pledged virgin, never to be looked upon with a sensual thought, never to be

touched by any man. Had Leonie somehow known this, feared that some day he would lose his control,

approach her—even if only in thought—in a way no Keeper might be approached?

Shattered, Damon had fled. It seemed now, years later, that a lifetime stretched between the young

Damon, thrust into an unfriendly world to build himself a new life, and the Damon of today, in command

of himself, veteran of this successful campaign. The memory was still alive in him—it would be raw till his

death—but Damon armed himself, as Leonie drew near, with the memory of Ellemir Lanart, who

awaited him now, at Armida.

I should have wedded her before ever I came on this campaign. He had wanted to, butDom

Esteban had felt that a marriage in such haste was unseemly for gentlefolk. He would not have, his

daughter hurried to her marriage bed like a pregnant serving wench! Damon had agreed to the delay.

Hie reality of Ellemir, his promised bride, should now banish even the most painful of memories.

Summoning the control of a lifetime, Damon finally rode forward, Eduin at his side.

“You lend us grace, kinswoman,” he said gravely, bowing from the saddle. “It is late in the year for

journeying in the hills. Where do you ride at this season?”

Leonie returned the bow, with the excessive formality of a Comyn lady before outsiders.

“Greetings, Damon. I ride to Armida, and so, among other things, I ride to your wedding.”

“I am honored.” The journey from Arilinn was long, and not lightly undertaken at any season. “But

surely it is not only for my wedding, Leonie?”

“Not only for that. Although it is true that I wish you all happiness, cousin.”

For the first time, momentarily, their eyes met, but Damon looked away. Leonie Hastur, Lady of

Arilinn, was a tall woman, spare-bodied, with the flame-red hair of the Comyn, now graying beneath the

hood of her riding cloak. She had, perhaps, been very beautiful once; Damon would never be able to

judge.

“Callista sent me word that she wishes to lay down her oath to the Tower and marry.” Leonie

sighed. “I am no longer young; I wished to give back my place as Keeper, when Callista was a little

older and could be Keeper.”

Damon bowed in silence. This had been ordained since Callista had come, a girl of thirteen, to the

Arilinn Tower. Damon had been a psi technician Callista’s first year there, and had been consulted about

the decision to train her as a Keeper.

“But now she wishes to leave us to marry. She has told me that her lover”—Leonie used the polite

inflection which made the word mean “promised husband”—“is an off-worlder, one of the Terrans who

have built their spaceport at Thendara. What do you know of this, Damon? It seems to me fanciful,

fantastic, like an old ballad. How came she to know this Terran? She told me his name, but I have

forgotten…”

“Andrew Carr,” Damon said as they turned their horses toward Armida, riding side by side. Their

escorts and Leonie’s lady-companion followed at a respectful distance. The great red sun hung low in

the sky, casting lurid light across the peaks of the Kilghard Hills behind them. Clouds had begun to

gather to the north, and there was a chill wind blowing from the distant, invisible peaks of the Hellers.

“I am not certain, even now, how it all began,” Damon said at last. “I only know that when Callista

was kidnapped by the catmen, and she lay alone, in darkness and fear, imprisoned in the caves of

Corresanti, none of her kinsmen could reach her mind.”

Leonie shuddered, pulling her hood closer about her face. “That was a dreadful time,” she said.

“True. And somehow it happened that this Terran, Andrew Carr, linked with her in mind and

thought. To this day I do not know all of the details, but somehow he came to bear her company in her

lonely prison; he alone could reach her mind. And so they grew close together in heart and mind,

although they had never seen one another in the flesh.”

Leonie sighed and said, “Yes, such bonds can be stronger than bonds of the flesh. And so they

came to love one another, and when she was rescued, they met—”

“It was Andrew who aided most in her rescue,” Damon said, “and now they have pledged one

another. Believe me, Leonie, it is no idle fancy, born of a lonely girl’s fear, or a solitary man’s desire.

Callista told me, before I went on this campaign, that if she could not win her father’s consent and yours,

she would leave Armida, and Darkover, and go with Andrew to his world.”

Leonie shook her head sorrowfully. “I have seen the Terran ships lying in the port at Thendara,” she

said. “And my brother Lorill, who is on the Council and has dealings with them, says that they seem in

every way men like to ourselves. But marriage, Damon? A girl of this planet, a man of some other? Even

if Callista were not Keeper, pledged virgin, such a marriage would be strange, hazardous for both.”

“I think they know that, Leonie. Yet they are determined.”

“I have always felt very strongly,” Leonie said, in a strange faraway voice, “that no Keeper should

marry. I have felt so all my life, and so lived. Had it been otherwise…” She looked up briefly at Damon,

and the pain in her voice struck at him. He tried to barricade himself against it.Ellemir , he thought, like a

charm to guard himself, but Leonie went on, sighing. “Even so, if Callista had fallen so deeply in love

with a man of her own clan and caste, I would not impose my belief on her; I would have released her

willingly. No—” Leonie stopped herself. “No, not willingly, knowing what troubles lie ahead for any

woman trained and conditioned as Keeper for a matrix circle, not willingly. But I would, at the last, have

released her, and given her in marriage with such good grace as I must. But how can I give her to an

alien, a man from another world, not even born of our soil and sun? The thought makes me cold with

horror, Damon! It makes my skin crawl!”

Damon said slowly, “I, too, felt so at first. Yet Andrew is no alien. My mind knows that he was

born on another world, circling the sun of another sky, a distant star, not even a point of light in our sky

from here. Yet he is not inhuman, a monster masquerading as a man, but truly one of our own, a man

like myself. He is foreign, perhaps, not alien. I tell you, I know this, Leonie. His mind has been linked to

mine.” Without being aware of the gesture, Damon placed his hand on the matrix crystal, the

psi-responsive jewel he wore around his neck in its insulated bag, then added, “He haslaran .”

Leonie looked at him in shock, disbelief.Laran was the psi power which set the Comyn of the

Domains apart from the common people, the hereditary gift bred into the Comyn blood! “Laran!” she

said, almost in anger. “I cannot believe that!”

“Belief or disbelief do not alter a simple fact, Leonie,” Damon said. “I have hadlaran since I was a

boy, I am Tower-trained, and I say to you, this Terran haslaran , I have linked with his mind and I can

tell you he is no way different from a man of our own world. There is no reason to feel horror or

revulsion at Callista’s choice. He is only a man like ourselves.”

Leonie said, “And he is your friend.”

Damon nodded, saying, “My friend. And for Callista’s rescue we linked together—through the

matrix.” There was no need to say more. It was the strongest bond known, stronger than blood-kin,

stronger than the tie of lovers. It had brought Damon and Ellemir together, as it had brought Andrew and

Callista.

Leonie sighed. “Is it so? Then I suppose I must accept it, whatever his birth or caste. Since he has

laran , he is a suitable husband, if any man living can truly be a suitable husband for a woman

Keeper-trained!”

“There are times when I forget he is not one of us,” Damon said. “Then there are other times when

he seems strange, almost alien, but the difference is one only of custom and culture.”

“Even that can make a great difference,” Leonie said. “I remember when Melora Aillard was stolen

away by Jalak of Shainsa, and what she endured there. No marriage even between Domains and Dry

Towns has ever endured without tragedy. And a man from another world and sun must be even more

alien than this.”

“I am not so sure of that,” Damon said. “In any case Andrew is my friend and I will support him in

his suit.”

Leonie slumped in her saddle. “You would not give your friendship, nor link through a matrix, with

one unworthy,” she said. “But even if all you say is true, how can such a marriage be anything but

disaster? Even if he were one of our own, fully understanding the grip of the Tower on a Keeper’s body

and mind, it would be near to impossible. Wouldyou have dared so much?”

Damon flinched away from the question. She could not have meant it, not as he thought she meant it.

They were not living in the days before the Ages of Chaos, when the Keepers were mutilated, even

neutered, made less than women. Oh, yes, the Keepers were still trained, Damon knew, with a terrible

discipline, to live apart from men, reflexes deeply built into body and brain. But no longer changed. And

surely Leonie could not have known… or, Damon thought, he was the one man she would never have

asked that question. Surely it was innocent, surely she never knew. He steeled himself against Leonie’s

innocence, forced himself to look at her, to say in a low voice, “Willingly, Leonie, if I loved as Andrew

loved.”

As hard as he fought to keep his voice steady and impassive, something of his inward struggle

communicated itself to Leonie. She looked up, quickly and for a bare moment, a second or less. Their

eyes met, but Leonie quickly looked away.

Ellemir, Damon reminded himself desperately.Ellemir, my beloved, my promised wife . But his

voice was calm. “Try to meet Andrew without prejudice, Leonie, and I think you will see that he is such

a man as you would willingly have given Callista in marriage.”

Leonie had mastered herself again. “All the more for your urging, Damon. But even if all you say is

true, I am still reluctant.”

“I know,” Damon said, looking down the road. They were now within sight of the great front gates

of Armida, the hereditary estate of the Domain of Alton. Home, he thought, and Ellemir waiting for him.

“But even if allyou say is true, Leonie, I do not know what we can do to stop Callista. She is no silly

young girl in the grip of infatuation; she is a woman grown, Tower-trained, skilled, accustomed to having

her own way, and I think she will do her will, regardless of us all.”

Leonie sighed. She said, “I would not force her back unwilling; the burden of a Keeper is too heavy

to be borne unconsenting. I have borne it a lifetime, and I know.” She seemed weary, weighed down by

it. “Yet Keepers are not easy to come by. If I can save her for Arilinn, Damon, you know I must.”

Damon knew. The old psi gifts of the Seven Domains, bred into the genes of the Comyn families

hundreds or thousands of years ago, were thinned now, dying out. Telepaths were rarer than ever

before. It could no longer be taken for granted that even the sons and daughters of the direct line of each

Domain would have the gift, the inherited psi power of his House. And now, not many cared. Damon’s

elder brother, heir to the Ridenow family of Serrais, had nolaran . Damon, himself, was the only one of

his brothers to possesslaran in full measure, and he had been in no way specially honored for it. On the

contrary, his work in the Tower had made his brothers scorn him as something less than a man. It was

hard to find telepaths strong enough for Tower work. Some of the ancient Towers had been closed and

stood dark, no longer teaching, training, working with the ancient psi sciences of Darkover. Outsiders,

those with only minimal Comyn blood, had been admitted to the lesser Towers, though Arilinn kept to

the old ways and allowed only those closely related by blood to the Domains to come there. And few

women could be found with the strength, the psi skill, the stamina—and the courage and willingness to

sacrifice almost everything which made life dear to a woman of the Domains—to endure the terrible

discipline of the Keepers, Who would they find to take Callista’s place?

Either way, then, was tragedy. Arilinn must lose a Keeper—or Andrew a wife, Callista a husband.

Damon sighed deeply and said, “I know, Leonie,” and they rode in silence toward the great gates of

Armida.

Chapter Two

From the outer courtyard of Armida, Andrew Carr saw the approaching riders. He summoned

grooms and attendants for their horses, then went into the main hall to announce their coming.

“That will be Damon coming back,” Ellemir said in excitement, and ran out into the courtyard.

Andrew followed more slowly, Callista close at his side.

“It is not only Damon,” she said, and Andrew knew, without asking, that she had used her psi

awareness to guess at the identity of the riders. He was used to this now, and it no longer seemed

uncanny or frightening.

She smiled up at him, and once again Andrew was struck by her beauty. He tended to forget it

when he was not looking at her. Before he ever set eyes on her, he had come to know her mind and

heart, her gentleness, her courage, her quick understanding. He had come to know, and value, her gaiety

and wit, even when she was alone, terrified, imprisoned in the darkness of Corresanti.

But she was beautiful too, very beautiful, a slender, long-limbed young woman, with coppery hair

loosely braided down her back, and gray eyes beneath level brows. She said as she walked at his side,

“It is Leonie, theleronis of Arilinn. She has come, as I asked.”

He took her hand lightly in his own, though this was always a risk. He knew she had been trained

and disciplined, by methods he could never guess, to avoid the slightest touch. But this time, although her

fingers quivered, she let them lie lightly in his, and it seemed that the faint trembling in them was a storm

which shook her, inwardly, through her schooled calm. He could just see, faintly, on the slender hands

and wrists, a number of tiny scars, like healed cuts or burns. Once he had asked her about them. She

had shrugged them away, saying only, “They are old, long healed. They were… aids to memory.” She

had not been willing to say more, but he could guess what she meant, and horror shook him again.

Could he ever truly know this woman?

“I thoughtyou were Keeper of Arilinn, Callista,” he asked now.

“Leonie has been Keeper since before I was born. I was taught by Leonie to take her place one

day. I had already begun to work as Keeper. It is for her to release me, if she will.” Again there was the

faint shivering, the quickly withdrawn glance. What hold did that terrible old woman have over Callista?

Andrew watched Ellemir running toward the gate. How like she was to Callista—the same tall

slenderness, the same coppery-golden hair, the same gray eyes, dark-lashed, level-browed—but so

different, Ellemir, from her twin! With a sadness so deep he did not know it was envy, Andrew watched

Ellemir run to Damon, saw him slide from his saddle and catch her up for a hug and a long kiss. Would

Callista ever be free enough to run to him that way?

Callista led him toward Leonie, who had been carefully assisted from her saddle by one of her

escorts. Callista’s slim fingers were still resting in his, a gesture of defiance, a deliberate breaking of

taboo. He knew she wanted Leonie to see. Damon was presenting Ellemir to the Keeper.

“You lend us grace, my lady. Welcome to Armida.”

Andrew watched intently as Leonie put back her hood. Braced for some hideous domineering

crone, he was shocked to see that she was only a frail, thin, aging woman, with eyes still dark-lashed

and lovely, and the remnants of what must have been remarkable beauty. She did not look stern or

formidable, but smiled at Ellemir kindly.

“You are very like Callista, child. Your sister has taught me to love you; I am glad to know you at

last.” Her voice was light and clear, very soft. Then she turned to Callista, holding out her hands in a

gesture of greeting.

“Are you well again,chiya ?” It was enough of a surprise that anyone could call the poised Callista

“little girl.” Callista let go of Andrew’s hand; her fingertips just brushed Leonie’s.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” she said, laughing, “but I still sleep like a nursery-child, with a light in my

room, so I will not wake to darkness and think myself again in the accursed caverns of the catmen. Are

you ashamed of me, kinswoman?”

Andrew bowed formally. He knew enough of Darkovan manners now not to look at theleronis

directly, but he felt Leonie’s gray eyes resting on him. Callista said, with a little thrill of defiance in her

voice, “This is Andrew, my promised husband!”

“Hush,chiya , you have no right to say so yet,” Leonie rebuked. “We will speak of this later; for

now I must greet my host.”

Recalled to her duty as hostess, Ellemir dropped Damon’s hand and conducted Leonie up the

steps. Andrew and Callista followed, but when he reached for Callista’s hand she drew it away, not

deliberately but with the absent habit of years. He felt she did not even know he was there.

The Great Hall of Armida was an enormous stone-floored room, furnished in the old manner, with

benches built in along the wall, and ancient banners and weapons hung above the great stone fireplace.

At one end of the hall was a fixed table. Near this,Dom Esteban Lanart, Lord Alton, was lying on a

wheeled bed, flattened against pillows. He was a huge, heavy man, broad-shouldered, with thick, curly

red hair liberally salted with gray. As the guests came in he said testily, “Dezi, lad, put me up for my

guests,” and a young man seated on one of the benches sprang up, skillfully piled pillows behind his back

and lifted the old man to a sitting position. Damon had thought at first that the boy was one of Esteban’s

body-servants, then he noticed the strong family resemblance between the old Comyn lord and the

youngster who was lifting him.

He was only a boy, whiplash thin, with curly red hair and eyes more blue than gray, but the features

were almost those of Ellemir.

He looks like Coryn, Damon thought. Coryn had beenDom Esteban’s first son, by a long-dead

first wife. Older than Ellemir and Callista by many years, he had been Damon’s sworn friend when they

were both in their teens. But Coryn had been dead and buried for many years. And he had not been old

enough to leave a son this age—not quite.The boy is an Alton, though , Damon thought.But who is

he? I’ve never seen him before !

Leonie, however, seemed to recognize him at once. “So, Dezi, you have found a place for

yourself?”

The boy said with an ingratiating grin, “Lord Alton sent for me, to come and make myself useful

here, my lady.”

Esteban Lanart said, “Greetings, kinswoman, forgive me that I cannot rise to welcome you to my

hall. You lend me grace,Domna .” He caught the direction of Damon’s gaze and said offhandedly, “I’d

forgotten you don’t know our Dezi. His name is Desiderio Leynier. He’s supposed to be anedestro son

to one of my cousins, though poor Gwynn died before he could get around to having him legitimated.

We had him tested forlaran —he was at Arilinn for a season or two—but when I needed someone

around me all the time, Ellemir remembered he was home again, and so I sent for him. He’s a good lad.”

Damon felt shocked. How casually, even brutally,Dom Esteban had spoken, in Dezi’s very

presence, of the boy’s bastardy and his poor-relation status! Dezi’s mouth had tightened but he kept his

composure, and Damon warmed to him. So young Dezi also knew what it was to find the warmth and

closeness of a Tower circle, and then be shut out from it again!

“Damn it, Dezi, that’s enough pillows, stop fussing,” Esteban commanded. “Well, Leonie, this is no

way to welcome you under my roof after so many years, but you must take the will for the deed and

consider yourself bowed to, formally welcomed, and all courtesies duly done, as I should indeed do if I

could rise from this accursed bed!”

“I need no courtesies, cousin,” Leonie said, coming closer. “I only regret to find you like this. I had

heard you were wounded, but did not know how serious it was.”

“I didn’t know either. It was a small wound—I’ve had deeper and more painful ones from a

fishhook—but small or large, the spine was damaged, and they say I will never walk again.”

Leonie said, “It is often so with spinal injuries; you are fortunate to have the use of your hands.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so. I can sit in a chair, and Damon devised a brace for my back so that I can

sit without drooping like a baby too small for his high chair. And Andrew is helping to supervise the

estate and the livestock, while Dezi is here to run errands for me. I can still run things from my chair, so I

suppose I am fortunate, as you say. But I was a soldier, and now…” He broke off, shrugging. “Damon,

my lad, how went your campaign?”

Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Forbidden Circle 2 - The Fo

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