Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Kennard was a generous and gracious host; he had commanded seats at the very edge of the gravity ring, and sent for the finest of wines and delicacies; they sat suspended over the starry gulf, watching the gravity-free dancers whirling and spinning across the void below them, soaring like birds in free flight. Dio sat at Kennard’s right hand, across from Lew, who, after that first flash of reaction to the illusion of far space, sat motionless, his scarred and frowning face oblivious. Past them, galaxies flamed and flowed, and the dancers, half-naked in spangles and loose veils, flew on the star-streams, soaring like exotic birds. His right hand, evidently artificial and almost motionless, lay on the table unstirring, encased in a black glove. That unmoving hand made Dio uncomfortable; the empty sleeve had seemed, somehow, more honest.
Only Lerrys was really at ease, greeting Lew with a touch of real cordiality; but Lew replied only in monosyllables, and Lerrys finally tired of trying to force conversation and bent over the gulf of dancers, studying the finalists with unfeigned envy, speaking only to comment on the skills, or lack of them, in each performer. Dio knew he longed to be among them.
When the winners had been chosen and the prizes awarded, the gravity was turned on, and the tables drifted, in gentle spiral orbits, down to the floor. Music began to play, and dancers moved onto the ballroom surface, glittering and transparent as if they danced on the same gulf of space where the gravity-dancers had whirled in free-soaring flight. Lew murmured something about leaving, and
actually half-rose, but Kennard called for more drinks, and under the service Dio heard him sharply reprimanding Lew in an undertone; all she heard was “Damn it, can’t hide forever—”
Lerrys rose and slipped away; a little later they saw him moving onto the dance floor with an exquisite woman whom they recognized as one of the performers, in starry blue covered now with drifts of silver gauze.
“How well he dances,” Kennard said genially. “A pity he had to withdraw from the competition.
Although it hardly seems fitting for the dignity of a Comyn lord—”
“Comyn means nothing here,” laughed Geremy, “and that is why we come here, to do things
unbefitting the dignity of Comyn on our own world! Come, kinsman, wasn’t that why
you
came here, to be free for adventures which might be unseemly or worse in the Domains?”
Dio was watching the dancers, envious. Perhaps Lerrys would come back and dance with her. But she saw that the woman performer, perhaps recognizing him as the contestant who had had to withdraw, had carried him off to talk to the other finalists. Now Lerrys was talking intimately with a young, handsome lad, his red head bent close to the boy. The dancer was clad only in nets of gilt thread, and the barest possible gilt patches for decency; his hair was dyed a striking blue. It was doubtful, now, that Lerrys remembered that there were such creatures as women in existence, far less sisters.
Kennard watched the direction of her glance. “I can see you are longing to be among the dancers, Lady Dio, and it is small pleasure to a young maiden to dance with her brothers, as I have heard my foster-sister and now my foster-daughters complain. I have not been able to dance for many years,
damisela
, or I would give myself the pleasure of dancing with you. But you are too young to dance in such a public place as this, except with kinsmen—”
Dio tossed her head, her fair curls flying. She said, “I do as I please, Lord Alton, here on Vainwal, and dance with anyone I wish!” Then, seized by some imp of boredom or mischief, she turned to the
scowling Lew. “Yet here sits a kinsman—will you dance with me, cousin?”
He raised his head and glared at her, and Dio quailed; she wished she had not started this. This was no one to flirt with, to exchange light pleasantries with! He gave her a murderous glance, but even so, he was shoving back his chair.
“I can see that my father wishes it,
damisela
. Will you honor me?” The harsh voice was amiable enough—if you did not see the look deep in his eyes. He held out his good arm to her. “You will have to forgive me if I step on your feet. I have not danced in many years. It is not a skill much valued on Terra, and my years there were not spent where dancing was common.”
Damn him, Dio thought, this was arrogance; he was not the only crippled man in the universe, or on the planet, or even in this room—his own father was so lame he could hardly put one foot before the other, and made no bones about saying so!
He did not step on her feet, however; he moved as lightly as a drift of wind and after a very little time, Dio gave herself up to the music, and the pure enjoyment of the dance. They were well matched, and after a few minutes of moving together in the perfect rhythm—she knew she was dancing with a
Darkovan, nowhere else in the civilized Empire did any people place so much emphasis on dancing as on Darkover—Dio raised her eyes and smiled at him, lowering mental barriers in a way which any Comyn would have recognized as an invitation for the telepathic touch of their caste.
For the barest instant, his eyes met hers and she felt him reach out to her, as if by instinct, attuned to the sympathy between their bodies. Then, without warning, he slammed the barrier down between them, hard, leaving her breathless with the shock of it. It took all her self-control not to cry out with the pain of that rebuff, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that he hurt her; she simply smiled and went on enjoying the dance at an ordinary level, the movement, the sense of being perfectly in tune with his steps.
But inside she felt dazed and bewildered. What had she done to merit such a brutal rejection? Nothing, certainly; her gesture had indeed been bold, but not indecently so. He was, after all, a man of her own caste, a telepath and a kinsman, and if he felt unwilling to accept the offered intimacy, there were gentler ways of refusing or withdrawing.
Well, since she had done nothing to deserve it, the rebuff must have been in response to his own inner turmoil, and had nothing to do with her at all. So she went on smiling, and when the dance slowed to a more romantic movement, and the dancers around them were moving closer, cheek against cheek,
almost embracing, she moved instinctively toward him. For an instant he was rigid, unmoving, and she wondered if he would reject the physical touch, too; but after an instant his arm tightened round her.
Through the very touch, though his mental defenses were locked tight, she sensed the starved hunger in him— How long had it been, she wondered, since he had touched a woman in any way? Far too long, she was sure of that. The telepath Comyn, particularly the Alton and Ridenow, were well-known for their fastidiousness in such matters; they were hypersensitive, much too aware of the random or casual touch. Not many of the Comyn were capable of tolerating casual love affairs.
There were exceptions, of course, Dio thought; the young Heir to Hastur had the name of a follower of women; though he was likely to seek out musicians or matrix mechanics, women who were sensitive and capable of sharing emotional intensity, not common women of the town. Her brother Lerrys, too, was promiscuous in his own way, though he too tended to seek out those who shared his own
consuming interests— A quick glance told her that he was dancing with the youngster in the gilded nets, a quick-flaring, overflowing intimacy of shared delight in the dance.
The dance slowed, the lights dimming, and she sensed that all around them couples were moving into each other’s arms. A miasma of sensuality, almost visible, seemed to lie like mist over the whole room.
Lew held her tight against him, bending his head; she raised her face, again gently inviting the touch he had rebuffed. He did not lower his mental barriers, but their lips touched; Dio felt a slow, drowsy excitement climbing in her as they kissed. When they drew apart his lips smiled, but there was still a great sadness in his eyes.
He looked around the great room filled with dancing couples, many now entwined in close embraces.
“This—this is decadent,” he said.
She smiled, snuggling closer to him. “Surely no more than Midsummer festival in the streets of Thendara. I am not too young to know what goes on after the moons have set.”
His harsh voice sounded gentler than usual. “Your brothers would seek me out and call challenge on me.”
She lifted her chin and said angrily, “We are not now in the Kilghard Hills,
Dom
Lewis, and I do not allow any other person, not even a brother, to tell me what I may or may not do! If my brothers disapprove of my conduct, they know they may come to me for an accounting of it, not to you!”
He laughed and with his good hand touched the feathery edges of her hair. It was, she thought, a beautiful hand, sensitive and strong, without being over-delicate. “So you have cut your hair and declared the independence of a Free Amazon, kinswoman? Have you taken their oath too?”
“No,” she said, snuggling close to him again. “I am too fond of men ever to do that.”
When he smiled, she thought, he was very handsome; even the scar that pulled his lip into distortion only gave his smile a little more irony and warmth.
They danced together much of the evening, and before they parted, agreed together to meet the next day for a hunt in the great hunting preserves of the pleasure planet. When they said good night, Kennard was smiling benevolently, but Geremy was sullen and brooding, and when the three of them were in their luxurious suite, he demanded wrathfully, “Why did you do that? I told you, stay away from Lew! We don’t really want an entanglement with that branch of the Altons!”
“How dare you try to tell me whom I can dance with? I don’t censure your choice of entertainers and singing women and whores, do I, Geremy?”
“You are a Lady of the Comyn! And when you behave so blatantly as that—”
“Hold your tongue!” Dio flared at him. “You are insulting! I dance one evening with a man of my own caste, because my brothers have left me no other dancing partner, and already you have me bedded down with him! And even if it were so, Geremy, I tell you once again, I will do as I wish, and neither you nor any other man can stop me!”
“Lerrys,” Geremy appealed, “Can’t you reason with her?”
But Lerrys stood regarding his sister with admiration. “That’s the spirit, Dio! What is the good of being on an alien planet in a civilized Empire, if you keep the provincial spirit and customs of your backwater? Do what you like, Dio. Geremy, let her alone!”
Geremy shook his head, angry, but he was laughing too. “You too! Always one in mind, as if you had been born twins!”
“Certainly,” said Lerrys. “Why, do you think, am I a lover of men? Because, to my ill-fortune, the only woman I have ever known with a man’s spirit and a man’s strength is my own sister!” He kissed her, laughing. “Enjoy yourself,
breda
, but don’t get hurt. He may have been on his good behavior last night, or even in a romantic mood, but I suspect he could be savage.”
“No.” Suddenly Geremy was sober. “This is no joke. I don’t want you to see him again, Diotima. One evening, perhaps, to do courtesy to our kinsmen; I grant you that, and I am sorry if I implied it was more than courtesy. But no more, Dio, not again. Lerrys said as much last night, when he wasn’t devilling me! If you don’t think I have your good at heart, certainly you know Lerrys does. Listen to me, sister; there are enough men on this planet to dance with, flirt with, hunt with—yes, damn it, and to lie with too, if that’s your pleasure! But let Kennard Alton’s half-caste bastard alone—do you hear me?
I tell you, Dio, if you disobey me, I shall make you regret it!”
“Now,” said Lerrys, still laughing, as Dio tossed her head in defiance, “you have made it certain, Geremy; you have all but spread the bridal bed for them! Don’t you know that no man alive can forbid Dio to do anything?”
In the hunting preserve next day, they chose horses, and the great hawks not unlike the
verrin
hawks of the Kilghard Hills. Lew was smiling, good-natured, but she felt he was a little shocked, too, at her riding breeches and boots. “So you are the Free Amazon you said you were not, after all,” he teased.
She smiled back at him and said, “No. I told you why I could never be that.”
And the more I see him
, she thought,
the more sure I am of it
. “But when I ride in the riding-skirts I would wear on Darkover, I feel like a housecat in leather mittens! I like to feel free when I ride, if not, why not stay on the ground and embroider cushions?”
“Why not, indeed?” he asked, smiling, and in his mind, painless for once, she saw, reflected, a quick memory of a laughing woman, red-headed, riding bareback and free over the hills…The picture
slammed shut; was gone. Dio wondered who the woman had been and felt a faint, quick envy of her.
Lew was a good rider, though the lifeless artificial hand seemed to be very much in his way; he could use it, after a fashion, but so clumsily that she wondered if, after all, he could not have managed better one-handed. She would have thought that even a functional metal hook would have been more use to him. But perhaps he was too proud for that, or feared she would think it ugly. He carried the hawk on a special saddleblock, as women on Darkover did, instead of holding it on his wrist as most hillmen did; when she looked at it, he colored and turned angrily away, swearing under his breath. Again Dio thought, with that sudden anger which Lew seemed able to rouse in her so quickly,
why is he so
sensitive, so defensive, so self-indulgent about it? Does he think most people know or care whether he
has two hands, or one, or three
?
The hunting preserve had been carefully landscaped and terraformed to beautiful and varied scenery, low hills which did not strain the horses, smooth plains, a variety of wild life, colorful vegetation from a dozen worlds. But as they rode she heard him sigh a little. He said, just loud enough for her to hear,
“It is beautiful here. But the sun here—is wrong, somehow. I wish—” and he closed off the words, the way he could close off his mind, sharp and swift, brutally shutting her out.